4 ms·

We moved from a 7 day working week to a 6 day working week about 2000 years ago, and to 5 days about 100 years ago, it's time to move to 4 days. In addition the

by mavhc 8y ago

We moved from a 7 day working week to a 6 day working week about 2000 years ago, and to 5 days about 100 years ago, it's time to move to 4 days. In addition the 5th day should be used for lifelong education, people should be expected to learn about all the new things that have been invented since they left school, or refresh what they're not good at.

JohnBooty 8y ago
> In addition the 5th day should be used for lifelong education It's tough because in tech, spending significant time (probably totaling about a day per week) needs to be spent on continuing education and employers (and spouses) are not keen on letting it happen on "their" time. I've been doing Ruby on Rails for four years and even that -- a relatively stable, mature framework -- is a grindy treadmill of continual learning because any project you're rotated onto will have 492 gems you're not familiar with, most of which are utility classes but some of which are essentially miniframeworks. I can barely consider myself "full stack" at this point because I think even fulltime JS devs must struggle with that explosion.
- james_s_tayler 8y ago
  I'd love to do 4 days work 1 day education for exactly this reason. Though I've come to point where I'm starting to approach it strategically. For the most part the only thing that really matters is how employable you are. So long as you can find a job that meets your standards you are fine as you learn the minutiae on the job and it's always different for every job so you can't prepare in advance. With that in mind this year I'm focusing mostly on the fundamentals doing deep dives into knowledge with extremely long half-life. I've got about 280 hours of courses I'm making my way through on Pluralsight this year. I'm about 1/4 the way through. Just started my SQL playlist and already I'm so glad I'm taking the time to dive deep on it. The difference between now and the end of the year will be night and day.
eeZah7Ux 8y ago
In many rural societies work and leisure were constantly intermixed. An craftsman/shopkeeper/farmer could spend 110 hours a week on the workplace while doing 20 hours of active work.
- therealdrag0 8y ago
  I think this is a good point and shows how there is more depth and complexity to the conversation. I find that my work isn't as draining as it could be, but part of that is I often spend over an hour a day chit-chatting with coworkers at work. If it's not all meetings-go-go-build-go-go, then work can be quite pleasant, while still being productive. And given the problem of loneliness that is arising, it might be less smart to reduce the work week (giving people more time to be alone), than to just make work less intense and forgiving. I.e, I suspect 56.5h is better than 48h.
- mavhc 8y ago
  This was also the point of the Luddites, they weren't against technology, but against working in a factory 8 to 8 instead of working from home.

by mavhc 8y ago

JohnBooty 8y ago

> In addition the 5th day should be used for lifelong education It's tough because in tech, spending significant time (probably totaling about a day per week) needs to be spent on continuing education and employers (and spouses) are not keen on letting it happen on "their" time. I've been doing Ruby on Rails for four years and even that -- a relatively stable, mature framework -- is a grindy treadmill of continual learning because any project you're rotated onto will have 492 gems you're not familiar with, most of which are utility classes but some of which are essentially miniframeworks. I can barely consider myself "full stack" at this point because I think even fulltime JS devs must struggle with that explosion.

james_s_tayler 8y ago
I'd love to do 4 days work 1 day education for exactly this reason. Though I've come to point where I'm starting to approach it strategically. For the most part the only thing that really matters is how employable you are. So long as you can find a job that meets your standards you are fine as you learn the minutiae on the job and it's always different for every job so you can't prepare in advance. With that in mind this year I'm focusing mostly on the fundamentals doing deep dives into knowledge with extremely long half-life. I've got about 280 hours of courses I'm making my way through on Pluralsight this year. I'm about 1/4 the way through. Just started my SQL playlist and already I'm so glad I'm taking the time to dive deep on it. The difference between now and the end of the year will be night and day.

eeZah7Ux 8y ago

In many rural societies work and leisure were constantly intermixed. An craftsman/shopkeeper/farmer could spend 110 hours a week on the workplace while doing 20 hours of active work.

therealdrag0 8y ago
I think this is a good point and shows how there is more depth and complexity to the conversation. I find that my work isn't as draining as it could be, but part of that is I often spend over an hour a day chit-chatting with coworkers at work. If it's not all meetings-go-go-build-go-go, then work can be quite pleasant, while still being productive. And given the problem of loneliness that is arising, it might be less smart to reduce the work week (giving people more time to be alone), than to just make work less intense and forgiving. I.e, I suspect 56.5h is better than 48h.
mavhc 8y ago
This was also the point of the Luddites, they weren't against technology, but against working in a factory 8 to 8 instead of working from home.