Well, the name was borrowed from Tim Ferriss's series of 4-hour books aimed at maximizing productivity gains in various aspects of life. I.e. his 4-hour Body book writes about how one could have life-changing impact from just 4 hours of exercise a week.
While his claims are not entirely scientifically substantiated, I liked some of his ideas of maximizing time efficiency. so the 2hr Aquarist came from that idea - and I do think 2hours is a lot of time in aquarium terms. I could educate someone on a lot of the key mechanics of how a planted tank function in just 2 hrs, or if they took 2 hrs to read an impactful article, it could change the way they run their tanks. 2hrs I think is also a good amount of time per week to spend on tank maintenance, and if done correctly, makes a huge impact on tank outcomes. So that is where the idea of the name comes from.
Putting it into practice - at least for 4ft tanks and below, I generally do not spend more than 2hrs a week averagely to maintain them (excluding initial setup). In some weeks I spend maybe an hour, that is counter balanced by some weeks where I spend 3 hours but averagely I would say not more than 2 hours over a longer horizon. I do frequent small trims daily that take less than 5 mins, and usually a larger trim/small replanting cycle at the end of the week with the water change. While I use many stem plants in my layouts, the background and major bushes are always species that I can trim without uprooting for many months. In tanks with less picky species, nitrate limitation keeps growth rates in check.
Folks with stem plants tend to fall into two groups - the ones that don't cut their stems at all because they fear removing the pretty top growth, and folks that shear off all the tops at once when trimming. There is a third method - picking off the tallest shoots individually on a frequent basis, while leaving the surrounding shoots to continue growing. This allows bushes to be thinned out regularly without disrupting the look of the bush. Cut below the canopy line to hide the cut ends. Over time, a row of secondary lower tops will form, allowing the taller shoots to be continually cut on a rotational basis without needing to shear off the whole canopy at the same time. Vid:
