What 80-100 Hour Weeks in Investment Banking Actually Look Like

You've heard the number. Eighty hours. Ninety hours. Sometimes more.

But what does that actually mean? Not the abstract concept of long hours—the lived reality. What time do you wake up? When do you sleep? What happens in between? What gets sacrificed?

This isn't a scare piece or a recruitment ad. It's an honest description of what filling 80-100 hours a week with investment banking work actually looks like. You deserve to know before you sign up.

The Math of Long Hours

Let's start with simple arithmetic.

A week has 168 hours. If you work 85 hours (a typical busy week), you have 83 hours left.

Activity	Hours/Week	Hours Remaining
Starting hours	-	168
Work	85	83
Sleep (6 hrs/night)	42	41
Commute (if applicable)	5	36
Eating	7	29
Showering/getting ready	5	24
Free time remaining	-	24

Twenty-four hours of free time per week. About three hours per day, scattered in fragments.

On a 100-hour week, that number drops to nine. Barely an hour a day for everything outside work and basic survival.

This is the math. It's non-negotiable.

A Typical Week: The Play-by-Play

Here's what an actual 85-hour week might look like. This is a composite of many analysts' experiences—your mileage will vary by group, bank, and deal flow.

Monday

7:00 AM – Alarm. Check phone immediately. Three emails came in overnight from a VP working on a different time zone deal. One needs a response before the 9 AM meeting.

7:45 AM – Arrive at office. Most analysts are already there. Grab coffee from the kitchen. The good snacks are already gone.

8:00 AM – Start on the overnight requests. Update a slide deck with new numbers. The formatting takes longer than the analysis.

9:00 AM – Team meeting. The MD reviews deal status. You have three active projects. Two are heating up.

10:00 AM – Deep work on a DCF model for a potential M&A transaction. The assumptions keep changing.

12:30 PM – Lunch at desk. Seamless delivery. You eat while updating comps. Food gets cold.

2:00 PM – Fire drill. A client wants an updated presentation by 5 PM. Everything else stops.

5:00 PM – Presentation sent. Brief relief. Return to the DCF model.

7:30 PM – Dinner ordered. You eat in a conference room with other analysts while continuing work.

9:00 PM – The VP reviews your model. Comments require substantial revisions. "We need this by morning."

11:30 PM – Model revisions complete. Review presentation formatting one more time. Send everything.

12:15 AM – Leave office. Uber home. Scroll phone numbly in the back seat.

1:00 AM – Sleep.

Hours worked: 16

Tuesday

7:15 AM – Wake up. Check phone. The overnight comments aren't too bad. Small wins.

8:00 AM – Back at desk. Coffee. The model needs more sensitivity tables.

9:30 AM – Associate asks for help on a separate deal. You now have four projects.

12:00 PM – Working lunch with the deal team. Sandwiches in a conference room. Discussion of client dynamics.

3:00 PM – Client call. You're on mute the whole time, taking notes and flagging follow-up items.

4:00 PM – Call ends. Fifteen follow-up tasks get assigned. Due tomorrow.

6:00 PM – Gym? You planned to go. You won't make it.

7:00 PM – Dinner at desk. You've now eaten every meal at your desk for two days.

10:00 PM – Most follow-up items complete. One requires data you don't have. Email the associate. Wait.

11:00 PM – Associate responds with the data. Thirty more minutes of work.

11:45 PM – Leave. Home. Sleep.

Hours worked: 15.5

Wednesday

6:45 AM – Wake up early to get ahead. Check email. A deal that was dormant just reactivated. Priority one.

7:30 AM – In office. The reactivated deal needs a full refresh of materials. Last touched three months ago.

10:00 AM – Scheduled coffee chat with a summer analyst. You mentor them for thirty minutes. It's actually a nice break.

11:00 AM – Back to the refresh. The old files are a mess. Rebuilding takes twice as long as expected.

1:00 PM – Lunch ordered. You eat in eight minutes. Back to work.

4:00 PM – Unexpected MD request: "Can you pull together a quick one-pager on this company?" Quick means three hours.

7:00 PM – One-pager done. Back to the refresh. Dinner at desk again.

11:00 PM – First draft of refresh complete. Send to associate for review. They'll have comments by morning.

11:30 PM – Leave. Exhaustion is setting in.

Hours worked: 15.5

Thursday

7:00 AM – Wake up. Heavy. The week is catching up. Coffee is mandatory.

8:00 AM – In office. Associate comments on the refresh: "Good start, but we need to rethink the story." The structure needs to change.

9:00 AM – Reworking the refresh. It's frustrating—this is the third direction change.

12:00 PM – Team lunch at a restaurant. The only time you'll leave the building today. The food is good. The conversation is pleasant.

1:30 PM – Back to work. The one-pager from yesterday needs updates. The MD showed it to someone who had feedback.

4:00 PM – All four deals are active now. You're juggling tasks across all of them. Context-switching is exhausting.

6:00 PM – One deal has a deadline tomorrow. That becomes the focus.

8:00 PM – Dinner at desk. You've lost count of desk meals this week.

11:30 PM – Tomorrow's deadline materials are mostly done. One section needs data that finance hasn't sent.

12:00 AM – Finance won't respond tonight. Send what you have. Flag the gap.

12:30 AM – Home. Sleep.

Hours worked: 16.5

Friday

7:30 AM – Wake up. Friday energy. Maybe you'll get out early.

8:15 AM – In office. The missing data arrived at 2 AM. Complete the materials.

9:00 AM – Materials sent for review. The MD is traveling. Radio silence for two hours.

11:00 AM – Comments arrive. "Looking good. A few tweaks." The tweaks take ninety minutes.

1:00 PM – Materials finalized and sent to the client. One deadline met.

2:00 PM – Three deals still have weekend work queued. The associate outlines Saturday deliverables.

5:00 PM – Most people are still working. The office vibe is slightly lighter, though. Someone orders pizza.

7:00 PM – You're told you can leave. One of the deals is paused until Monday. Weekend work is now just two deliverables.

7:30 PM – Leave office. It feels early.

8:30 PM – Drinks with a friend who doesn't work in finance. They ask how your week was. You don't know how to summarize it.

11:30 PM – Home. Sleep.

Hours worked: 11

Saturday

10:00 AM – Wake up without an alarm. Check email. Nothing urgent yet.

11:00 AM – Coffee. Gym. It feels luxurious. Your body thanks you.

1:00 PM – Brunch with friends. You're present but tired. The conversation feels slightly distant.

3:00 PM – Home. The Saturday deliverables loom. Start working.

4:00 PM – Email from the associate: "Client moved up the timeline. Can we have the deck by tomorrow morning instead of Monday?"

4:15 PM – Plans for tonight evaporate. Focus on the deck.

8:00 PM – Dinner ordered to your apartment. Eating while working, but at least you're home.

11:00 PM – Deck is 80% done. The remaining 20% requires information that doesn't exist yet. Email associate. Wait.

11:45 PM – Associate responds: "We'll figure that part out tomorrow. Get some rest."

12:00 AM – Sleep.

Hours worked: 8

Sunday

9:00 AM – Wake up. Check email. The associate figured out the missing information.

10:00 AM – Coffee. Work from the couch. Finish the deck.

12:00 PM – Deck sent. Second deliverable is simpler. Two hours of work.

2:30 PM – Both deliverables done. Free time. What do you do with it?

3:00 PM – Laundry. Groceries. Cleaning. The life maintenance you've ignored all week.

6:00 PM – You start thinking about Monday. The anxiety creeps in.

8:00 PM – Early dinner. Early sleep. Preparing for another week.

10:00 PM – Sleep.

Hours worked: 4.5

Weekly Total: 87 Hours

And this was a manageable week. No all-nighters. No weekend full-days. One deal stayed quiet.

The Spectrum of Weeks

Not all weeks are equal. The hours swing dramatically.

Light Weeks (60-70 Hours)

These exist. Maybe you're between deals. Maybe nothing urgent is happening.

You leave at 8 PM some nights. You have weekend plans you actually keep. You remember what hobbies feel like.

Light weeks feel like vacation. They're also dangerous—they can make you forget what the job actually demands.

Average Weeks (75-85 Hours)

Most weeks land here. In by 8, out by midnight, with weekend work sprinkled in.

You develop routines. You learn to function. The hours are brutal but sustainable in bursts.

Heavy Weeks (90-100 Hours)

A deal is live. A deadline is immovable. Something is on fire.

You're in the office at 7 AM. You leave after 2 AM. You come back on Saturday at 8 AM. Sunday too.

Sleep drops to four or five hours. Meals are whatever's fastest. Exercise disappears. Friends become names in your phone you haven't texted.

Heavy weeks are survivable. Heavy months break people.

All-Nighters

Yes, they happen. More often than anyone should admit.

You work until 4 AM. Going home for two hours of sleep isn't worth the commute. You nap on a couch or keep working. The sun rises. You're still at your desk.

The day after an all-nighter is a haze. Your brain functions at maybe 60%. Errors creep in. But the deadline was met.

Some groups have all-nighters monthly. Others rarely. Group selection matters.

What Gets Sacrificed

Hours spent working are hours not spent elsewhere. Here's what gives.

Sleep

The first casualty. Six hours becomes the norm. Five on bad nights. Four during crunches.

Sleep debt compounds. By Thursday, you're running on fumes. Coffee keeps you upright. Quality suffers even when quantity doesn't—work stress disrupts rest.

Exercise

You meant to work out. You had a gym membership. For the first few months, you might go occasionally.

Then weeks pass. Then months. Your body changes. You sit for sixteen hours a day and eat delivery food. The physical toll is real.

Relationships

Friends outside finance stop asking to hang out. You've canceled too many times.

Dating is hard. Who has time? Even when you have a partner, you're rarely present. Conversations happen via text at 11 PM. Weekend plans evaporate.

Family events get missed. You call your parents less. You're always about to be free but never actually free.

Hobbies

Whatever you did before banking—reading, music, sports, games—it stops. There's no time. When you have time, you're too tired.

Hobbies feel like a past life. Something you used to do when you were a different person.

Health

Mental and physical health erode. Anxiety increases. Some people develop depression. Substance use rises—caffeine to function, alcohol to unwind.

The body isn't designed for this. Extended periods of high stress and low sleep cause damage. Some of it recovers when you leave. Some doesn't.

Coping Strategies That Actually Work

This section isn't about making the hours okay. It's about surviving them.

Protect Non-Negotiables

You can't protect everything. Pick one or two things and defend them ruthlessly.

Maybe it's Sunday morning until noon. Maybe it's calling your parents every Saturday. Maybe it's sleeping before midnight one night per week.

Communicate these to your team when possible. "I have a commitment Sunday morning but I'm reachable after noon." Most reasonable teams accommodate occasional boundaries.

Eat Real Food

Seamless makes it easy to order garbage. Your body is the only equipment you have. Fuel it properly.

Order food with vegetables. Eat breakfast before the day swallows you. Keep snacks at your desk that aren't candy.

You'll still eat poorly sometimes. Try to eat well when you can.

Move When Possible

You won't maintain a gym routine. Accept that.

But you can take stairs instead of elevators. Walk during phone calls. Do push-ups in the bathroom. Stretch at your desk.

Small movements compound. Sitting for sixteen consecutive hours is worse than sixteen total hours with movement breaks.

Sleep Strategically

When you can sleep, prioritize it over everything except work.

Don't stay out late on a light night—bank the sleep. Use blackout curtains. Put your phone across the room so you actually get up.

On all-nighter recovery days, sleep early. Your body needs it.

Batch Personal Tasks

Life maintenance—laundry, groceries, cleaning, bills—doesn't stop because you work 90 hours.

Handle it in batches. Sunday afternoon becomes admin time. Order groceries for delivery. Automate bills. Hire cleaning help if you can afford it.

Every hour you save on logistics is an hour for rest or sanity.

Stay Connected (Barely)

Isolation worsens everything. Maintain minimal social connection.

Text friends even when you can't see them. Call family during your commute. Have lunch with someone outside your team occasionally.

These connections won't be deep while you're in the thick of it. But they'll remain threads to grab when you resurface.

Set an End Date

The hours are bearable when they're temporary. Two years is survivable. Forever isn't.

Know your exit timeline. Visualize what comes after. This light at the end makes the tunnel passable.

What Makes Hours Harder or Easier

Group Culture

Some groups have face-time cultures. Leaving before midnight signals lack of commitment—regardless of whether work remains.

Other groups are output-focused. Finish the work, go home. Nobody cares if you leave at 9 PM on a slow night.

The difference is massive. Research group culture before accepting offers.

Manager Quality

A good staffer distributes work evenly. A bad one overloads favorites and creates chaos.

A good VP shields you from unnecessary fire drills. A bad one passes everything downstream with urgent deadlines.

Your direct managers determine more of your experience than the bank's name.

Deal Flow

Some periods are busier than others. Market conditions, group focus, and pure randomness affect your hours.

A slow quarter feels luxurious. A live deal sprint feels endless. You can't predict or control this.

Your Own Efficiency

Faster work means earlier nights. Not dramatically—the work expands—but at the margins.

Learn Excel shortcuts. Build template libraries. Write clean first drafts. Every minute saved compounds.

The Psychological Reality

The hours don't just take time. They reshape your brain.

Time Distortion

Weeks blur together. You lose track of days. "Last week" might mean ten days ago.

Months pass without registration. You surface in December wondering where summer went.

Comparative Adaptation

Your reference point shifts. Leaving at 11 PM feels early. Weekends working only four hours feel free.

Normal disappears. Banking normal replaces it.

Identity Narrowing

Without time for hobbies, friends, and outside interests, your identity compresses to your job.

You become "an analyst at Bank X." The other dimensions of who you are fade. This is psychologically unhealthy but common.

Delayed Emotion

You don't process things in real-time. There's no space.

Grief, joy, stress, relationships—they get shelved. Emotions emerge later, sometimes months later, when space finally exists.

Is It Worth It?

This article can't answer that for you. The calculus is personal.

What You Get

Compensation ($150K-$200K+ total comp as a first-year analyst)
Exit opportunities unavailable elsewhere
Skills that transfer to any finance role
Resume credibility
Relationships with smart, driven people

What You Give

Two to three years of your twenties
Health, at least temporarily
Relationships, at least in their full form
Experiences you can't have while working these hours
Some amount of sanity

Questions to Ask Yourself

Can I function on six hours of sleep for extended periods?
Am I okay with work being my primary identity for a few years?
Do I have a clear reason for doing this (exit, money, learning)?
Can I delay gratification—the payoff comes after, not during?
Do I have support systems that can survive distance?

If you answered yes honestly, the hours might be worth it. If you hesitated, consider that seriously.

The Bottom Line

Eighty to one hundred hour weeks are exactly as hard as they sound. Not harder—they're survivable. Not easier—they exact real costs.

The days are long. The weeks blur. The months vanish. You sacrifice sleep, relationships, health, and identity. The work takes everything you give and asks for more.

Some people thrive in this. The intensity suits them. The compensation matters. The exits are worth it.

Others break. The hours hollow them out. They leave damaged, wondering what they traded their twenties for.

Know yourself honestly before choosing. The hours aren't a mystery—they're a known cost. The only question is whether you're willing to pay it.