How Many Hours Should You Work Per Day as a Writer?
People are starting to realize there is nothing glamorous about overworking. Working too many hours every day or week is terrible for your health, social connections, and overall productivity.
While there are substantial benefits to working remotely, a downside can be that it’s hard to unplug from work. Rather than working more while working remotely, you should consider working less.
Set hard boundaries for when clients can contact you and equally rigid boundaries for yourself.
Aspiring writers frequently ask me, "How many words can one realistically write in a day?" and "How many hours should you write per day?"
Most of these studies aren't exclusively about how much time to spend writing, but are more broadly about how much capacity we have to do work, especially creative work, per day.
Working Over 55 Hours Per Week Harms Your Health
A study published by the World Health Organization (WHO) concluded that working 55 hours or more per week increases your risk of a stroke by 35% and your risk of dying from ischemic heart disease by 17%, compared to working between 35 and 40 hours per week.
WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus acknowledges, “Teleworking has become the norm in many industries, often blurring the boundaries between home and work.” He also warns workers, “No job is worth the risk of stroke or heart disease.”
Another WHO organization member, Dr. Maria Neira, Director, Department of Environment, Climate Change and Health, clearly states, “Working 55 hours or more per week is a serious health hazard. It’s time that we all, governments, employers, and employees wake up to the fact that long working hours can lead to premature death.”
Some Believe 35 to 37 Hours per Week is Best (with lots of vacation!)
Dan Buettner, who writes for the New York Times and National Geographic, studies where people live the longest, healthiest lives. Buettner states that people should work around 35 hours per week. They should also take about six weeks of vacation per year, according to the happiness expert.
Indeed, when you look at the countries ranked as the happiest in the world, the top slots are usually European countries. The average EU employee works 37 hours per week. Finland, considered the happiest country, has five weeks as the minimum mandated annual leave by law.
Many companies raise that number after you’ve been working with them for a long time. If you don’t give yourself five to six weeks off each year to fully recharge, you may need to adjust your workweek accordingly to avoid burnout.
Around the world, the average annual hours worked per worker is declining.
Image Credit: Yuasan, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Studies of 6-Hour Workdays Are Promising
A few years ago, the Swedish government funded a study to see if a shorter workday increases productivity. Spoiler: it does. The nurses at the Svartedalens retirement home switched from an eight-hour workday to a six-hour workday, while keeping the same salary.
After about a year, the data showed the 68 nurses who worked six-hour work days took half as much sick time as the nurses in the control group at a similar facility. The nurses with the six-hour workday were also 2.8 times less likely to take any time off in a two-week period.
Results showed they were 20% happier and had more energy. They did 64% more activities with elderly residents, a sign of increased productivity.
Dr. Aram Seddigh from Stockholm University’s Stress Research Institute believes in the six-hour workday, but not necessarily for all professions.
He has stated, “I think the six-hour work day would be most effective in organisations - such as hospitals - where you work for six hours and then you just leave and go home.” Seddigh believes, “It might be less effective for organisations where the borders between work and private life are not so clear.”
5 Hours Per Day May Be the Maximum for Creative Work
According to Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, founder of Silicon Valley consultancy Strategy and Rest and author of Rest: Why You Get More Done When You Work Less, “Research indicates that five hours is about the maximum most of us can concentrate hard on something.”
However, Pang is mainly speaking about creative work that requires a lot of focus. He admits there is plenty of work that doesn’t require deep focus.
A writer or programmer, for example, might be able to only work well for five hours a day. However, a factory line worker with a repetitive task may be able to work more hours each day.
You May Only Be Productive 3 Hours Per Day
Psychologist Ron Friedman claims the majority of people “typically have a window of about three hours where we’re really, really focused.
RescueTime research agrees.
They analyzed 225 million hours of working time. The results showed that the average knowledgeable worker, such as a writer or developer, is only productive for about 12.5 hours per week or 2.5 hours per day.
If that’s how much you can be productive, why would much more than that?
How Many Hours Should You Work Per Week? Per Day?
Obviously, there is some disagreement on how many hours per week is ideal. It makes sense as different jobs require different levels of focus. Plus, people themselves have varying levels of concentration, motivation, and desire for “free time.”
To know the right amount of hours for you, time yourself even when you aren’t working hourly. All of my work these days is project based, but I still like to time myself to see how long everything takes and be in tune with how much work is realistic for me each day and week.
For writers, focus on your output -not your hours. If you’re transitioning from an hourly job with a lot of meetings to project-based work, don’t worry if your working hours go down. Look at whether or not you’re happy with the work you’re creating and find the right balance for you.
Related Writing Daily Questions
Should I Focus on Hours or Daily Word Count?
Some writers focus on how many hours they can feasibly write per day, while others focus on daily word counts. Full-time writers use their personal numbers to determine how much work they can take on from clients.
Burnout is extremely popular among newer writers who overestimate how much they can consistently write each day.
The word "consistently" is important because in a client emergency most writers can do marathon writing, but doing it every day for a few weeks will make you grow to hate your job and decrease the quality of your work.
Your daily word counts and the number of hours you can write varies vastly depending on the writer. This is partially because there are many different types of writing.
Someone doing creative writing might get deep into a story plot and lose track of time. Meanwhile, someone writing a mentally taxing and research-intensive white paper may require a shorter writing session.
As you write more, you'll get a better sense of your limits. For now, estimate you'll get less done per day than you think. If your first client has an assignment believe think will take you eight hours, don't say you can turn it in a day later.
Assume you'll at most write four or five hours each day and give yourself a longer deadline. Set expectations for sustainable deadlines from the start.
A client is happy if you turn a piece in early and angry if you turn it in late, regardless of the agreed-upon turnaround time.
How do I write faster?
Looking to make your daily writing routine more efficient? Good news! If you're writing within the same niche frequently, your writing process will naturally get faster.
You won't have to do as much research about topics and that will significantly speed up how long it takes to write your first draft. If you're a newer writer who is still trying to improve grammatically, you'll speed up too as your editing rounds will get shorter.
The best way to improve your writing skills, both in terms of quality and speed, is to write as much as possible. For you, that may mean writing daily or it may mean you have a writing day each week where you focus deeply on writing.
Some people don't do any self-editing during a first draft, but wait until the end. It can save time because you might delete sections you carefully edited anyway.
Nowadays, many writers try to speed up their writing with AI writing tools. While these can help with idea generation, you might spend more time editing an AI tool's work than you would spend writing yourself.
If the reason you want to write as quickly as possible is to make more money, know this isn't the only pathway to a higher payday.
Some writers work for almost nothing at a very high volume to stay afloat. They write fluffy, low-quality content 10+ hours every day and want to write faster to earn a few more pennies.
Providing that you can create quality work, strive to get higher-paying clients so you can work less and get paid the same.
Make your writing goal quality work, rather than the quantity of work you can pump out each writing session.
Whether you're trying to go from Zero to Remote Writer or just trying to get more hobby writing in, remember that writing should be somewhat enjoyable and not just a chore, even if it's your job.