5 ms·

My opinion is that we need to move to four day work weeks and each day should have six working hours. Knowledge workers are wasting their lives at work when the

My opinion is that we need to move to four day work weeks and each day should have six working hours. Knowledge workers are wasting their lives at work when they could get the same amount done in fewer hours.

kuraudo 5y ago
I don't think it's an issue of getting the same amount done in fewer hours, I think that those hours are likely the actual productive hours anyway so we might as well adopt that schedule as you advocate.
kylebyproxy 5y ago
I'd love to see companies warm up to nontraditional employment arrangements. I've always wanted to be able to split my time between different jobs; e.g., half the year in an office environment, then half the year doing something outdoors. I feel like breaking up the monotony would help keep things fresh all around and generally improve my wellbeing.
- mikebowman 5y ago
  This kind of thinking is what's always intrigued me about freelancing/consulting. If I get bored of coding, I can take 6 months off and work an outdoor summer job, or reduce my coding hours to 20 hours/week and get a part time job at a coffee shop or something like that.
mark_l_watson 5y ago
yes! For about 2 decades, I worked for normal companies with normal 40 hour weeks, but, I negotiated a 20% salary decrease, and I didn't work Mondays (so, 32 hour work weeks). This worked out really well for me. I was satisfied with my work accomplishments, I had plenty of extra time to write books and spend more time with family and friends. I don't miss that 20% loss of income.
standardUser 5y ago
We (a smaller company) have had half day Fridays since early in the pandemic. This is great, but I wish I could convince the powers that be that those 4 hours on Friday are the least productive hours of the week, and that giving an entire day off would be vastly more beneficial than the half days. I'm on the verge of looking for a new job, but if we had every Friday off I would plan on sticking around a long, long time!
superfrank 5y ago
> Knowledge workers are wasting their lives at work when they could get the same amount done in fewer hours. I'm curious what job you have. I'm a SWE who is in the process of moving into a manager role. As an IC, I am 100% certain that I could get the same amount of work done in a 24 hour work week. In fact, I was probably working less than that already and still meeting my deadlines and getting great reviews. As a manager for the same team, at the same company, I am now working a full 40 and there's no way I could cut 40% of my hours without a massive drop in output. I'm not against a 4 day work week (in fact, my manager is talking about trying it out in Q4 for our department), but not everyone is an IC knowledge worker. There are plenty of roles where time does directly correlate with productivity, which is why this discussion is so complicated.
- ehutch79 5y ago
  I think this is a trigger for looking at the work you're doing, if it's actually necessary, or just busy work created by bureaucracy. If it is needed, should it be spread out among more people.
  - superfrank 5y ago
    > If it is needed, should it be spread out among more people. I agree, but that's kind of my point. There are plenty of people doing 40 hours worth of needed work right now. If we switch to a shorter work week, that work will need to be distributed to more people. It's not an impossible problem to solve, but OPs comment seems to imply that there are no trade offs to be made if we switched to a 24 hour work week and I'm just trying to point out that that isn't the case.
- rcurry 5y ago
  Learning to manage is a lot like learning how to write a novel - at first you think you need all those words but then you can learn to cut fifty percent of what you wrote and still get the same point across. It’s kind of the same deal with the hours spent at work - identify and eliminate time sinks and suddenly you’re doing the same work in half the time.
- 5y ago

kuraudo 5y ago

I don't think it's an issue of getting the same amount done in fewer hours, I think that those hours are likely the actual productive hours anyway so we might as well adopt that schedule as you advocate.

kylebyproxy 5y ago

I'd love to see companies warm up to nontraditional employment arrangements. I've always wanted to be able to split my time between different jobs; e.g., half the year in an office environment, then half the year doing something outdoors. I feel like breaking up the monotony would help keep things fresh all around and generally improve my wellbeing.

mikebowman 5y ago
This kind of thinking is what's always intrigued me about freelancing/consulting. If I get bored of coding, I can take 6 months off and work an outdoor summer job, or reduce my coding hours to 20 hours/week and get a part time job at a coffee shop or something like that.

mark_l_watson 5y ago

yes! For about 2 decades, I worked for normal companies with normal 40 hour weeks, but, I negotiated a 20% salary decrease, and I didn't work Mondays (so, 32 hour work weeks). This worked out really well for me. I was satisfied with my work accomplishments, I had plenty of extra time to write books and spend more time with family and friends. I don't miss that 20% loss of income.

standardUser 5y ago

We (a smaller company) have had half day Fridays since early in the pandemic. This is great, but I wish I could convince the powers that be that those 4 hours on Friday are the least productive hours of the week, and that giving an entire day off would be vastly more beneficial than the half days. I'm on the verge of looking for a new job, but if we had every Friday off I would plan on sticking around a long, long time!

superfrank 5y ago

> Knowledge workers are wasting their lives at work when they could get the same amount done in fewer hours. I'm curious what job you have. I'm a SWE who is in the process of moving into a manager role. As an IC, I am 100% certain that I could get the same amount of work done in a 24 hour work week. In fact, I was probably working less than that already and still meeting my deadlines and getting great reviews. As a manager for the same team, at the same company, I am now working a full 40 and there's no way I could cut 40% of my hours without a massive drop in output. I'm not against a 4 day work week (in fact, my manager is talking about trying it out in Q4 for our department), but not everyone is an IC knowledge worker. There are plenty of roles where time does directly correlate with productivity, which is why this discussion is so complicated.

ehutch79 5y ago
I think this is a trigger for looking at the work you're doing, if it's actually necessary, or just busy work created by bureaucracy. If it is needed, should it be spread out among more people.
- superfrank 5y ago
  > If it is needed, should it be spread out among more people. I agree, but that's kind of my point. There are plenty of people doing 40 hours worth of needed work right now. If we switch to a shorter work week, that work will need to be distributed to more people. It's not an impossible problem to solve, but OPs comment seems to imply that there are no trade offs to be made if we switched to a 24 hour work week and I'm just trying to point out that that isn't the case.
rcurry 5y ago
Learning to manage is a lot like learning how to write a novel - at first you think you need all those words but then you can learn to cut fifty percent of what you wrote and still get the same point across. It’s kind of the same deal with the hours spent at work - identify and eliminate time sinks and suddenly you’re doing the same work in half the time.
5y ago