Demis Hassabis's Daily Routine
Have dinner with your family and still get quiet hours for hard problems. Demis Hassabis starts a second workday at 10:00 PM and peaks around 1:00 AM.
By Colin PaceUpdated
Overview
Demis Hassabis co-founded DeepMind in 2010 and shared the 2024 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for AlphaFold, the AI that predicts protein structures. His working day comes in two parts, with dinner at home in between.
The first workday is office meetings. In the evening he goes home for dinner and time with his family. At 10:00 PM he starts what Fortune, reporting in 2026, called his "second workday", and it runs to about 4:00 AM, with his peak around 1:00 AM.
It's for people who think best when the house is quiet but won't give up the evening with their family. Meetings get the daylight, the family gets dinner, and the hardest thinking gets the hours when nobody needs you. The daytime hours, the meals and the weekend are our estimates.
Goals
Who's it for
At a glance
- 6 hr sleep per night
- 91 hr work per week
- 3 meals per day
- 11 hr eating window
- 14 hr play per week
Sleep
42 hours/week6 hr per night
- Every day4:00 AM → 10:00 AM· 6 hr
No naps.
Work
91 hours/week13 hr a day7 hr meetings6 hr deep work
- Meetings11:00 AM → 1:00 PM· 2 hr · Every day
- Meetings1:30 PM → 6:30 PM· 5 hr · Every day
- Deep work10:00 PM → 4:00 AM· 6 hr · Every day
Eat
14 hours/week3 meals13:11 eating window2 hr eating
- Breakfast10:00 AM → 10:30 AM· 30 min · Every day
- Lunch1:00 PM → 1:30 PM· 30 min · Every day
- Dinner7:30 PM → 8:30 PM· 1 hr · Every day
Off
Play
14 hours/weekFamily 7:00 PMFamily 8:30 PM
- Every day7:00 PM → 7:30 PM· 30 min
- Every day8:30 PM → 10:00 PM· 1 hr 30 min