David Heinemeier Hansson's Daily Routine

David Heinemeier Hansson created the web framework Ruby on Rails in 2004, is the CTO of 37signals, the company behind Basecamp, and won his class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2014. His daily routine is the opposite of a grind. There's no alarm, and work doesn't start until 11:00 AM.

He wakes around 8:30 AM, and the morning goes to family breakfast, time with his son, the school run and the household. He works until about 7:00 PM with breaks, has dinner, does a little more, then watches a show with his wife. He keeps to 40-hour weeks and says 4 or 5 focused hours make a great day. Balance the Grind pieced it together from his Product Hunt LIVE session in 2016, Lifehacker in 2017 and a tweet in 2018.

It's for anyone who suspects long hours are the problem rather than the fix, and who does their best work in a few focused hours. It's a permission slip for people who feel guilty about finishing early.

You trade the grind for a slow morning, 8.5 to 10 hours of sleep and evenings that are actually off. To try it, push one weekday's start back an hour and give that hour to home. Lunch, the length of the evening blocks and the weekend are our estimates.