What is Elon Musk’s formula for working 120 hours a week: Scientific answers

In 2018, Elon Musk surprised more than one person by confirming it In order to “change the world” it is necessary to work more than 80 hours a weekThat’s just over three full days, and even if you could put in more time to work, that would be even better.

“No one has changed the world by 40 hours a week (…) it varies from person to person, But around 80 remained, peaking above 100 at times. The pain level increases dramatically above 80, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, The Boring Company and Neuralink explained in a Twitter post.

In his personal case, Musk mentioned in an interview with Recode that in total He works an average of 120 hours per week, translated by days, will be a whole five; The rest of his team stays around 100 hours a week.

Of course, since the tech genius revealed this number, people who know her are wondering about the same thing: as you do? Most countries in the world, especially Latin American countries, have a minimum daily work limit of 48 hours per week. That’s 8 hours a day for five days, almost always Monday through Friday.

However, if many employees feel physically and mentally exhausted at the end of each day, and even more so on Fridays when their work week is over, How could Musk manage, on a relative basis, those same five days without any breaks? Well, psychology has the answer: She has fun.

Psychologically, people who enjoy working often see the world from a different perspective. All humans live, eat, sleep, and entertain themselves within 24 hours. No more, no less. However, not everyone experiences time the same way. It is no secret that when a person performs an activity that generates a lot of pleasure or satisfaction, he feels that time passes faster compared to activities that cause stress, laziness or frustration.

Spending an hour in an amusement park is different from spending an hour in a hospital waiting room. Although the same 60 minutes elapse in both cases, the time in the first case will be relatively faster because you avoid doing what is regularly done in the second: Watch around the clock.

Of course, this is part of the volume given in Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity: While the same time elapses for two different subjects, Each person’s perception of this constant will differ depending on how they live at the time. For this reason, someone like Musk who is having fun in the middle of his work will feel that time passes faster which makes him feel less tired or bored with the activity he is doing.

Another example is John Mackie, founder and owner of Whole Foods, an empire valued at more than $14 billion, which Even at 68 years old, he works more than 80 hours a week, stressing that his trade “isn’t a job, it’s a game.”

In this sense, it can also be said that for those who have fun while working, the passage of time does not translate into fatigue for their bodies, but, on the contrary, in energy. Those who enjoy playing a video game know this The level of entertainment provided by this technology outweighs the sleep they can feel from spending long hours in front of the TV.

Thus, according to Musk and Science, pleasure means that time is not considered a determinant of work, because when things are done with joy the most important thing is to maintain this activity, and not to take into account the time “spent” in it. ..

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