I discuss melatonin's effects on sleep & its safety; I segue into the general benefits of sleep and the severely disrupted sleep of the modern Western world, the cost of melatonin use and the benefit (eg. enforcing regular bedtimes), followed by a basic cost-benefit analysis of melatonin concluding that the net profit is large enough to be worth giving it a try barring unusual conditions or very pessimistic safety estimates.
Full essay: http://www.gwern.net/Melatonin
Ideal by what criteria? Personally I would prefer to work fewer hours at the same hourly wage (e.g. work 80% as much as I do for 80% of the salary) but many jobs are not very flexible regarding such arrangements. In my experience (game developer) companies are much more willing to negotiate higher salary than they are to negotiate on vacation time or on a standard 5 day / 40 hour working week.
The amount of time people spend working is culturally determined to a large extent. In North America for many people this means roughly 40 hours, 9 to 5, 5 days a week with 10 days annual vacation. In Europe it's more like 35 hours with 25 days+ vacation. Many highly paid professional jobs where employees are not on an hourly wage will frequently require more than 40 hours per week. Some jobs make it relatively easy for individuals to strike their own balance between hours worked and income received but many people are more or less stuck with the cultural norm even if they would prefer a different balance.
Ideal in that you'd prefer to work that long.
You work more than your ideal amount. Equivalently, you value your free time at higher than what you get payed. Presumably, people like you mixed in with people who want to work longer averages out to free time being worth the same as what one gets payed.
I'm not sure if you're agreeing with me, disagreeing, or going off on a tangent. If your agreeing, then I guess what I'm about to say is pointless.
This illustrates my point. I... (read more)