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9-5 Is Out. Try the 1-6 Instead
- angarg12 9y agoI'm a Spaniard and I could never do that. In order to be able to work like that you need a very specific set of circumstances, probably first of all being self-employed. Since I work by contract for a company, and they force me to put 8 hours a day, I can't do that. However, it is true that I am the most productive in the afternoon. That is why I try to enter and leave work as early as possible, so that I can spend those sweet afternoon hours being productive.
- walshemj 9y agoDepends if your hourly paid or salaried - in theory salaried jobs its up to you to decide how and when you work within reason.
- nwsm 9y agoGod Forbes' website is awful
- rhombocombus 9y agoIt is genuinely terrible. I enjoy a lot of their content, but that website is malignant.
- yakitori 9y agoWasn't forbes banned here because they had malware in their ads which infected a bunch of people and because most of their stuff is behind paywall?
- rhombocombus 9y agoI have felt this way for a long time about work, but my schedule demands something close to an 8 hour day. So to stay fresh, I take walks, small breaks, and try and avoid social media, which makes my desk time immensely more productive, oftentimes moreso than if I were to sit and grind for the entire workday.
- shadowtree 9y agoIt's absolutely great. Unless you start having kids. Or work in an area where you need to meet customers face to face. Or both. Just like working from Bali, working from a van, working from a plane, etc. If you're a SINK or a DINK, go for it, 100%.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- eindiran 9y agoWhat do "SINK" and "DINK" mean?
- bproven 9y agosingle income no kids; dual income no kids
- boopk 9y agomy life goal is dink
- illegalsmile 9y agoif you will it, it is no dream
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ubertaco 9y agoThis is predicated on the idea that you're only really productive in the afternoon, and that the morning is just wasted time. I'm most productive in the mornings, and my productivity only takes a dive in the afternoon because that's when all my meetings are. Turns out, anecdotes about an individual's workflow aren't broadly generalizable!
- s73ver_ 9y agoI think the point is less about which actual hours, but more about focusing on those hours that you are productive, making those count as much as you can, and not forcing yourself to work more during those unproductive hours "just because".
- ubertaco 9y agoI think you missed the part where those other, less-productive hours in my workday are spent in meetings with others. As in, that's part of my normal workday. And yeah, it may not be productive in the way I like, but it's necessary time to effectively collaborate. This idealized notion of "when I feel like it" workdays is particularly unrealistic in a workplace where you collaborate across timezones. I work best in the morning Eastern time, and I have teammates on the US west coast. If there's any chance of working with them instead of around them, I can't just say "eh, I'm less productive after 11am Eastern, so I'm just gonna call it quits."
- s73ver_ 9y agoNo, I didn't. I'm just pointing out that the specific hours mentioned in the article are not the focus, but the idea that you should concentrate during your peak hours, whatever they are.
- vvanders 9y agoYup 100% this. I shifted my schedule to early morning(6-7am) just so I could get 3-4 hours of uninterrupted work in before the onslaught of meetings. Highly recommend it.
- 9y ago
- s73ver_ 9y agoI'm 1000% in favor of spending fewer hours at work, and making those hours that are spent at work count more. However, I'm guessing that the 1-6 was for the bosses, and not for the workers.
- dboreham 9y agoNice idea but probably not written by someone who writes code or debugs for a living. Activities that imho benefit from long stretches of deep focus. Now perhaps you could work like that -- 16h sessions -- for three days then snowboard for the remainder of the week. That might work.
- s73ver_ 9y agoI don't see why. Part of the article is that you get down to what you need to do as soon as possible during the working hours. So you have your 1-6 (or whatever stretch of time you choose), you get down to it as soon as you can. No YouTube, no HN, nothing. Deep focus like that can really only be sustained for so long. I'd imagine that around dinnertime, I'd be ready to wrap up.
- jimminy 9y agoI used to do this, as a software engineer straddle 2 departmental areas, and I was explaining it to someone on Twitter last night,, in regards to my sleep schedule. I used to go in right before lunch to avoid the impromptu meetings associated with people coming back into the office. Coming in 11am-1PM allowed me to block off my productive time and work until dinner sometime between 6-8pm; and then come back to problem solving after dinner. This gave me one 6-8 hour stretch of time with little distraction vs a 3 and 4 hour stretch with lots of distractions in the first period.
- mnm1 9y agoI write code and debug for a living and often work similarly. I even force myself to take a break every hour, deep concentration or not. Necessity makes amazing things happen. I definitely do not do more than 8 hour sessions, ever, and never without multiple breaks anymore. It works out fine, a little slower than before but that's mainly due to lack of communication and has nothing to do with hours worked.
- everdev 9y agoThese ideas are interesting but it seems to suggest that if you work less you don't need as many breaks. Motivation for me comes in waves. When I'm inspired I can easily work 12-16 hours with just bathroom breaks. But, I can't induce those experiences, they just come. My fear of a 5 hour day would be that I'd be running at 80% for 5 hours instead of 80% for 8 hours.
- JeanMarcS 9y agoI work the over way (west side of the Atlantic, most clients in Europe). So I get up, work until lunchtime, and then my 5 hours working day is other if I want. Of course it’s not everyday I don’t work in the afternoon, but it’s nice that you can spend the afternoon with the kids if you want. Ok, sometimes duty calls in the middle of my night (last Tuesday I was woke up at 3am for an emergency on a client server) but in the 3 years I’ve been living this side of the ocean, it happened 7 or 8 tiles max.
- AnimalMuppet 9y agoI once got woken up by a phone call from Europe at 4 AM. The first thing I had to do was remember an 8-digit hex number. It took a bit...
- el_benhameen 9y agoI would've thought it would take 32 bits.
- codingdave 9y agoWorking efficiently at your peak working time makes sense. Assuming everyone else shares that same peak working time does not. You either need to set up an organizations where all collaboration can happen via async mechanisms (possible, but difficult)... or you need to have some times where people's work overlaps enough to have discussions and meetings. I've worked in remote jobs where, in general, people worked whenever they wanted, and we'd get on phone calls at agreed upon times if needed. I've also worked in jobs where we set aside a 2 hour window each day for everyone to be there, not caring if that window was the beginning, middle, or end of your day. Both of those scenarios felt more productive than "9-5".
- patchorang 9y agoI live in a region where winter days are very short. I go to work and it's dark, I leave work and it's dark. I don't understand why we have decided to go sit in buildings during daylight hours. Even with a 40-hour week, I would love if the work day was shifted to allow one to get sunlight for a few hours each day.
- a1exyz 9y agogo outside during lunch mang.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- CodeCube 9y agoThis right here ... so many people eat lunch at their desk. I find that I feel so much better when I take a break, both from being inside, and being in front of my computer where my work cannot escape my brain.
- nicksalt 9y agoAgreed.I try to run strict pomodoros. Also, when ever I start to feel lethargic, I do a few squats or push ups until failure and then I always go outside for some real air (day or night). It makes me a productivity machine.
- kawfey 9y agoBut it's 14 degrees out there.
- lightbyte 9y agoIf it's too cold for you to go outside surely you can't complain about having to be inside at work. OP's comment was about not being able to get outside during daylight hours.
- colechristensen 9y ago
- inanutshellus 9y agoSounds like #NoKids rather than #SpainBrain. I'm sure it sounds like I'm being pithy, but you fall into line when your kids get home at 4 and you want to spend time with them before they go to bed at 8. Maybe his point stands in some sense, but once you add kids into the mix it quickly becomes "9-5" again or "burning the candle at both ends."
- milesokeefe 9y ago*her
- Apocryphon 9y agoThere's also an argument that's been made that kids go to school too early in the day and school start time should be postponed to later in the morning, because they need more hours of sleep.
- blakesterz 9y agoHow is that even an argument? Does someone really argue that getting them up early is good for them? Especially for high school kids (maybe 14-18 ish?). No one could possibly think that sending them to a school that starts at 7am is any way good for them. In our distract the high school starts at 7am and the small kids start at 9am. This makes no sense to me at all. (I'm not a kid complaining, I'm a parent)
- tensor 9y agoYes, a lot of people like to argue that getting up early is good for everyone, kids and adults. It's silly, but the "early bird catches the worm" people seem to run the world.
- softawre 9y agoIf the early bird people run the world, isn't that proof enough that it is good to be an early bird?
- amelius 9y agoThis might be a fitting work schedule for people with an inverted cortisol production profile. Perhaps have some tests done before wanting this. You could be in a stressed-out state.
- didibus 9y agoYes! A thousand times yes! I'd also be okay starting at a 1-9 if people are against the idea of working less hours per day. Now this would only work if everything adapted. Schools, shops, banks, would all need to shift their hours. Finally we could enjoy daylight. Imagine spending time outside in the sun with your kids and wife during the day!! Everyday! Imagine not being too tired after your hard day of work to spend quality time with your family, hangout with friends, so household chores, work on that hobby project of yours, exercise! I don't think its feasible without a King or dictator forcing this change though. I hope we did, the idea of working on the hours that the sun is out is old, everyone works indoors now. Also, its difficult to gage the health and mental health impact of how little less sunshine we now consume compared to days past when we were outside a lot more during daylight times.
- fogzen 9y agoArticle should be titled “Try being a wealthy business owner to work less.” Most people don’t have the luxury of choosing their hours and only working 4 hours a day, remotely from a cafe or hotel. It’s not as if everyone is getting up and going to work for 8 hours because they want to...
- lagadu 9y agoPlenty of us do, particularly here among the HN crowd it's fairly common (myself included and I work for a salary).
- savanaly 9y agoObviously it is implied that this article is giving advice for people who set their own schedule and are wondering about how to move time around to feel more productive. Not for people who have their schedule strictly set for them by their employer. You dont have to be a wealthy business owner to fall into the former camp though.
- rock8y 9y agoI come in at around 11 45 every day and work until 7 with couple of 15 minute breaks for ping pong. No loss in productivity and extremely satisfied with commute(DC metro). But I make sure, I check my emails and respond at around 930 am, if some one needs me.
- adjagu 9y agoThis all sounds good unless you work a "shift" style schedule. Every single person I know works what is considered first shift (approximately 6/7/8/9am to 2/3/4/5pm). Some of them have tried second and third shifts, but they always go back to first shift because "second/third shift don't work for me" they say. Now for me I work better at night/early morning. Because of this I have worked third shift (midnight to 8am) for over 30 years and it works perfectly for me. If I want to be up while first shift is working I can. Or if I want to sleep during first shift and be awake for second shift I can do that too. It is nice to get off of work and do my errands and such without much traffic or that many people in stores. I get my errands done faster which gives me more free time. Third shift has the advantage that most of the population is asleep when I am working. So when I drive into work at night the roads are mostly empty and when I leave work in the morning the morning rush traffic is moving in the opposite direction that I am. Another advantage of third shift is I only spend 20 minutes driving to work and 20 minutes driving home from work each day. All the first shift people I know spend at least double that in traffic each day because dang near everyone works first shift.
- meesterdude 9y agoneat! I'm often a nightowl myself, and often reflect on how life would be different if we spread out the working hours for people more - so most places would be 24-hour, and roads wouldn't be so packed.
- adjagu 9y agoIt would be different if each shift only contained 1/3 of the workforce at a time. Rush hour(s) should contain much less traffic volume this way (since now there are what, 3 of them per day?). Overall there would be a slight increase in continuous traffic volume (as in at any given time of the day/night more people would be out and about). I do wonder if cities could benefit from a 24 hour schedule. Sure, during first shift the cities near me are bustling with people and activity. Second shift there are still people about and things to do, but after 8pm or so most cities around here start to look barren. Third shift. Shoot, it's me, the police, the newspaper delivery drivers and pretty much no one else.
- 9y ago
- sekou 9y agoAs many have said, there's more to this than just one type or the other. It might be worth considering taking a more intentional look at organizing teams around similar circadian rhythms. Some of the most productive work I've done was with a team that really started gaining momentum in the afternoons and sometimes into the evenings. I think many who deviate far from the "norm" self-select into late-night service industry positions. There are a lot of misconceptions around "early birds" or "late workers" that could be explained by varying sleeping patterns.
- el_benhameen 9y agoI'm most productive in the early morning and late evening. The mid-afternoon is my least productive time, perhaps because of lunch or because I live in a sunny area and I'd like to take advantage of the sunshine in the afternoon. I don't mind working 8 hours in a day, but I'd rather do something like the inverse of this person's schedule and work 7 to 11, both AM and PM.
- apapli 9y agoSpending your day in a sales role can be very similar to this. After losing time in client meetings, you often have only 5 hours left in the day to get your things done (frequently less than half that amount). I have certainly worked my fair share of > 40 hour weeks, but it’s safe to say you are forced to learn a way to be very efficient when you don’t have all day available to work.
- melq 9y agoShortening the work day seems like a great idea. Making everyone work the same hours seems like a terrible one. Especially the proposed 1-6. What if you have kids?