21 ms·

Ask HN: 6-hour workdays more important than 4-day workweeks IMO

280 points by high_byte 4y ago

Standard work hours here is 9am-6pm, so 9 hours and I used to stay 10+ hours in the office often. before covid was another hour commute daily which meant pretty much not having any sun. New girl at work has a kid and told me she thought it was crazy staying past 3-4pm, and it dawned on me how right she is. pretty much everyone finished working by 7pm - many stores, restaurants are already closed before I even had a chance. Also after 6 hours the effectiveness or quality of work declines. I got nothing against 4 day workweeks - I myself work part time, but I rather work 2-4 hours for even 6 days a week and I'd like to see this approach more popularized. Anyone else feels like this?

taubek 4y ago
It all comes down to productivity. Who can be productive 8 hours, day after day, for years? I know people (in IT) that work 6x6hours. And both they and employers are satisfied with this arrangement.
cabirum 4y ago
n-hour workdays must include commute time, encouraging for remote work where possible. Even 3 hour days should be enough - to interact with your peers. Other than that, performance is a measure of work planned vs work done. Time to sit on your ass should not even be a thing.
spaetzleesser 4y ago
“so 9 hours and I used to stay 10+ hours in the office often. “ There is the main problem already. Stick to your working hours. Don’t do free overtime.
svennek 4y ago
I hear you. I am self employed but try to mimic the standard 37-hour work-week of my country. Most weeks I do it 6x6 instead of 5x7,5ish... 6 hours feels more productive and 6x6 feels less hard than the normal 37 over 5 days...
sokoloff 4y ago
I think it depends on the job quite a bit. For creative work, I often find it impossible to force myself to work past 4 hours in a stretch; in other cases, I can easily work 11 hours before noticing that it's been that long and I haven't even had lunch yet. My company does a version of summer Fridays, where it's very easy to take 3-day weekends every week and I very much appreciate the "extra" day and would strongly not like to go in the other direction.
truckerbill 4y ago
Flexible hours in general should be encouraged and fought for. 4x6hrs would be ideal for me, but you have to have leverage to convince most places to agree to that.
- nvilcins 4y ago
  Been practicing 6-hour 4-day work week schedule for a while now and I'm the happiest I've ever been. No real noticeable difference in productivity long-term, and a significant improvement in the amount and quality of personal (non-work) time.
ben_w 4y ago
I tried 10 hour days *once* for a project crunch, and that was a bad decision in every regard. If your office hours are officially 09-18, but you’re working lunchtime and until 19:00, I don’t expect that officially reducing hours is going to help, because I expect you to unofficially keep with the longer hours anyway. On that basis, I think you personally would be better off with fewer days than shorter days. On the other hand, if you keep to the shorter hours, I think either shorter or fewer days would both be an improvement, though I don’t know which is the better quality of life.
orangepurple 4y ago
Meanwhile in China... Excerpts below taken from the website https://996.icu/#/en_US https://996.icu/#/en_US What is "996"? 996 working, ICU waiting. A "996" work schedule refers to an unofficial work schedule (9a.m. ~ 9p.m., 6 days a week) that has been gaining in popularity. Serving a company that encourages the "996" work schedule usually means working for at least 60 hours a week. In early September 2016, it was said that 58.com (58同城, a classified advertisements company) introduced the "996" work schedule, without paying employees overtime who worked on weekends. The company later claimed that the schedule was only practiced managing extra workflow during peak season - September and October, and that the schedule was not compulsory. In early 2019, Youzan (有赞, a Hangzhou-based E-commerce company) announced the company would adopt "996" work schedule in the annual convention. Bai Ya, the CEO of Youzan, responded: "This will definitely be a right decision when we look back in a few years." In mid-March 2019, it was reported that JD.com (京东, a major E-commerce company) started adopting "996" or "995" work schedules in some departments. The PR posted that (Our culture is) to devote ourselves wholeheartedly (to achieve the business objectives) via Maimai (脉脉, a Chinese real-name business social network platform). Gaining more publicity only recently, this work schedule, however, has long been a known "secret" practiced in a lot of companies in China.
- s5300 4y ago
  There are some rich people in the US who endorse 996. Calacanis being one. Imagine trying to be a bigger piece of shit. Japan isn’t even 996 & they’re going to have to start forcing people to have kids at gunpoint or kinda implode as a nation. Near purely because of their abysmal work culture. I recall when Cards Against Humanity paid for their overseas factory workers a day off by paying for a full factory day with a quota of zero or something like that. All they asked was that the workers spend time with family & send a picture if they do anything special. A ton of heartwarming but also incredibly sad to think about pictures came in, like a family celebrating their very young child’s birthday in a closet of an apartment. Tiny little home baked cupcake with a singular candle. They wouldn’t have even gotten to celebrate that in the slightest without their day off, paid by foreigners indescribably richer than them that they’ve never met nor likely will meet.
  - 4y ago
jhoechtl 4y ago
It really depends. If you live in a condo and you free time is sports, meetings friends, etc. a six hours work day is more important. If you build your house on your own, cultivate green land etc. the four day workweek is more important as these kinds of work require a lot of preparation time. Opt in models?
- ThalesX 4y ago
  > Opt in models? Inflamatory post but this would actually mean managers would have to manage. You can't go to a seminar and cocktail party and come back with the insights to properly manage a team where people opt in to the model that works best for them.
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    Managers would need to trust the team members
    - ThalesX 4y ago
      One can give all the trust in the world, but a good manager must also align incentives towards business goals and create a structure for tracking progress. Adding on top of that care and integration for the personal preferences of the team members… that would truly be a sight to behold.
      - quickthrower2 4y ago
        I agree with that.
5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
I would take 3 day weekend. Needs to be a clear delineation between work and weekend or some companies will take the p*ss. If you have 6 hour days you might find yourself still working more. For me its no contest.
- qw 4y ago
  I am in the same situation. I tend to get messages on Slack after hours on work days due to the different work hours, but almost never on weekends and holidays. I assume that an extra long weekend would be more beneficial.
codingdave 4y ago
I like the 4 day week, but that is because I have kids who are teenagers. Giving them some extra time each night with their parents is not important to them. But having an extra day to do something big, explore a new place, go to new museums, take small road trips, go camping, etc. - that makes a difference in their life. When they get older and go off on their own, though, I would agree with you - a short daily working routine sounds good for me personally.
- jokethrowaway 4y ago
  That sounds awesome! If you don't mind sharing, how do you manage school obligations?
  - high_byte 4y ago
    I guess 4 day school days wouldn't be a bad idea either... of course the other day should be filled with something productive, which may or may not include "schooling" (learning) or "working" (as in creating, not paid/unpaid labor) or other form of activity.
    - gibspaulding 4y ago
      The college I graduated from for the most part didn't offer classes on Friday and I can attest that it was wonderful as a student. It meant that I could get homework done and/or work a side job on Friday and still have a proper weekend to re-coup for the next week.
dudul 4y ago
Based on everything we've learned about productivity over the past few years, I would say just do 6-hours a day as part of a 4-day week.
bin_bash 4y ago
I think people with 1 hour commutes would definitely prefer 4 day weeks
- high_byte 4y ago
  for me it was 30 minutes commute for only 2 days a week, usually at least one direction was carpooling with a coworker so beyond tolerable, even enjoyable at times. but more than 1 hour while driving x5 days would be a no-no for me.
- MadeThisToReply 4y ago
  Eh, I have a 90 minute commute and I don't mind because I go by train. Three hours a day to read! I love it. Granted I wfh 2/3 days a week; if I had this commute every day I'd probably feel differently.
- madeofpalk 4y ago
  On the other hand, - support remote working - have better housing closer to where people work - if people want to commute an hour each way, that's on them
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    The issue with commuting is people have partners who work elsewhere so commuting is a compromise. WFH solves this and allows commutes of up to 12000 miles.
- hkt 4y ago
  Very good point. (Excuse the smugness here, but I've wanglee a four day week WFH and my life is amazing)
whiddershins 4y ago
I like working long hours, but 6 hours is the absolute max for the majority of people for intense intellectual or creative work for a sustained period of time. Most super prolific creatives (painters/composers) do a routine of between 1.5 and 3 hour sessions, one or two sessions per day. Depending on the person, but very consistent once the person figures out their routine. That means 1.5 - 6 hours total. But this doesn’t include meetings and correspondence and all that jazz. I like to wake early, work a bunch, then take time in the afternoon to do non work stuff. Then I can come back at the end of the day and do another few hours. This lets me experience the world when things are less crowded, make time for family etc, while still having plenty of time for work.
- 988747 4y ago
  Well, I'd love to have 6 hours or more of intellectual/creative work per day but in reality I get only 2-3, the rest is meetings and distractions.
  - high_byte 4y ago
    me too, but instead of meetings it's about energy. I can sit 18 hours on the computer if I have to, but rarely can I code for 18 hours. (sometimes I can but usually it's something very exciting and non-work related)
samuli 4y ago
I do not think that there is a one-size fits solution. People with kids might want to opt for six hour day, to better arrange life around them, some others might enjoy more the three day weekends. Some people work on ships and work six months in twelve hour rotation and then be on vacation for six months.
mrtksn 4y ago
The thing about the 5 days a week is that at the weekends you end up doing personal stuff you neglected during the workdays. I'm not sure that having two more hours a day will free up your weekend, I'm kind of leaning to 4 days a week because you can actually have useful time. Personally, I wouldn't object to 3 days of non-stop working till the midnight to have 4 free days a week. Things won't pile up and instead of having just evenings, I will be able to leverage full days which will give me better freedom of movement away from where I live. The 5 days a week schedule is my primary reason that I'm not in a full time job since a while. I was at home at 18:20 max, yet I never had time to do anything for myself.
- high_byte 4y ago
  those 2 hours (actually 3+ since it's normal for 9+ hours over here) include everything from shops, sun, avoiding traffic and other things I didn't mention or think about. also allows you to plan your day differently, like working 12-6 instead of 9-3 for example. imagine waking up at 6am and only starting work at 12pm...
  - Crusoe123 4y ago
    In that case being done with work at 12pm sounds like a much better deal.
- twh270 4y ago
  As you can probably see from the diversity of comments, this is a very subjective topic. I've seen (just in this thread) everything from "I'm fine with my 6x7" to "I'd love 3x10". Some people would find that having two extra hours a day is great; others wouldn't. For this among other reasons, I'm against a "one size fits all" policy. Give people more than one option, where it's reasonable to do so.
brnt 4y ago
I worked in the Netherlands. They had a 36 work week and asked me how I preferred to arrange those hours. I said: divide it by five please. Apparently I was the first person in their history (3k people work there! 100 years old institution) who asked for that! Everyone took either a day every two weeks off or worked 4x9hrs. A day every week or two is nice, of course, but I generally really like short days better! Doesn't leave me that exhausted and leaves a bit of time for things every day.
- artemonster 4y ago
  Do you know how people usually place their free day? Is it adjacent to weekend or middle of the week?
  - brnt 4y ago
    Wednesday was significantly more quiet at work.
Apreche 4y ago
Why not both? 4 days, 6 hours each. Hey employers reading this. Having a hard time finding software engineers? Offer me this and I will come running. I’ll be banging on your door with my resume. Think about it.
- Closi 4y ago
  Are you willing to get paid 24/37 = 64% of a fulltime positions salary? If so, I think plenty of smaller employers would be happy to do this.
  - quickthrower2 4y ago
    Nope. I will do more than 24/37 of the work. Probably in terms of value, just as much. (Just let me also choose what to work on and which meetings to attend)
  - unglaublich 4y ago
    That's the irony. Output doesn't scale linearly with time for human workers.
  - shippintoboston 4y ago
    I like how these proposals never get raised when it's the companies that suppress wages or hoard more wealth generated by their employees.
  - rmetzler 4y ago
    Your calculation assumes that all working hours create equal value. I can say for me that on most jobs I had, I got like 80% done in the first 4 hours and 20% in the other half of the day. I regularly stop working when I can’t concentrate anymore and do some hours on weekend mornings instead.
    - refurb 4y ago
      At my old job we used to get Friday’s off if we worked 9 hrs the first 4 days. People just worked 8 hours and didn’t come in Friday’s.
benji-york 4y ago
I've been working 32-hour weeks for the last year. I initially thought that I'd work 4 8-hour days a week, but quickly fell into a pattern of just working however long felt right. That ended up being 7 hours a day most days. On Thursdays I tally up how many hours I have left and work the remainder on Friday to finish out the week. I suspect I'm as productive as I would be at 40-hours a week.
- lbriner 4y ago
  That makes the most sense. With the sort of jobs I have, there's no way I could only work up to 6 hours per day without leaving something important undone.
anotheryou 4y ago
If I give up the free day for less hours I sell more valuable hours of my time. However it's also nice to work with more energy and never have any dreading late hours where you'd rather rest a bit some days. I have a 4 day week but flexible enough so I can move hours over, but I only move 1-2h to my free day on average.
api 4y ago
I prefer the opposite. I would rather work dawn to bedtime for three or four days then have a block of time off. It minimizes context switching. I could get my head fully into work then fully out of work.
- dt2m 4y ago
  Exactly - context switching will make you less productive trying to fit in three different "modes" every day all week.
SemanticStrengh 4y ago
Strongly agree
corderop 4y ago
I think it's better, at least for me, to have 4-day workweeks. I feel that much more of my productive energy is wasted during work hours. Even with 6 hours in the morning, I won't be able to focus with the same intensity for a full day for me after work. I think this is because I mostly use my leisure time for studying or coding. I reckon that a parent would prefer 6-hour workdays to spend more time with their kids.
rr808 4y ago
Damn the tech bubble is bigger than I thought.
- high_byte 4y ago
  how so.?
  - rr808 4y ago
    Everyone I know in non-tech jobs work minimum 40 hours a week. I know a bunch of people doing minimum wage jobs doing 80+ hours a week. I remember tech in the early days (and still at many jobs) working dawn to dusk. Now it seems developers are choosing between 4 day weeks and 6 hours/day? the job market is going to get a rude awakening.
    - freedom2099 4y ago
      Software engineers are hardly minimum wage jobs! And the human brain can’t sustain constant thought intensive tasks for long period of times continually… The dawn to dusk (if ever happened… I guess it depends on the country) it’s just a waste of time. Anyway I live on France and here the official working week is 35h!
      - rr808 4y ago
        Agreed they're skilled jobs and you can't write code 50 hours a week. You can write code 30 hours a week then talk with users, have design meetings, do paperwork, do first level support etc. France is a nice place to live. Everyone working 35 hrs and being on holiday so often is a good reason its economy is slowly dying.
        freedom2099 4y ago
        Better dead and happy than overworked and depressed trying to feel the void caused by not having a life with work!
    - 4y ago
qwerty456127 4y ago
I disagree. I have 6-7 hour workdays. That's nice but no nearly as nice as another free day. I still feel like I have no time for my own life/projects. I still feel exhausted after working even 6-7-hours (because I'm not a morning person naturally yet have to go work in the morning) and the evening time (nor even an evening nap) never actually feels nice if I worked that day. I go out on Saturday, sleep until evening (the only way I can actually get pleasurable and physically regenerative sleep) on Sunday, get up and immediately start feeling bad about the fact I had no productive time for my side projects/home as another workweek starts in just some hours. I'd rather work full 8 hours a day but have 4-day workweek. Ideally I'd prefer Wednesdays to be non-working days - this way I wouldn't have to spend more than 2 days in a row working in the office. For me this would feel even better than just 3-day weekends with 4-day contiguous workweeks. 5-vs-2 feels like you live in the office and go to visit home. 4-vs-3 feels the same although notably better. 2-1-2-2 (office-home-office-home) would actually feel you live at home and go to the office to get the job done. I even feel almost sure this would boost my actual office-time productivity.
- kahon65 4y ago
  Change job dude, you are going to have a burn out
  - qwerty456127 4y ago
    My job is easy, crisis-proof and generally fun, not to mention 6-7-hour workdays which many can only dream about (not a common thing to find at my location). I just hate getting up in mornings, having fixed time schedule and spending many days in a row working this way. But that's the standard almost everybody has to deal with. So I don't feel like changing the job. Perhaps I'm going to return to flexible-schedule gigs someday, that felt better except too insecure. I just hope the society is going to move to 4-day workweek. It's been so long since it last decreased the workweek length. In fact I only share details about my sub-optimal perceived well-being because people tend to come up with useful suggestions of relevant supplements and practices. E.g. from my own experience I can say homemade kombucha can boost after-work evening well-being significantly (feels like some batches boost serotonin or something like that).
ErrantX 4y ago
So I am seeing more and more of ideas like this; but I feel the need to challenge them a bit. Not the ideal; work less, have more fulfilling lives - I am all in. But all of these initiatives are focused on the wealthier office workers and sometimes factory/shift workers who are non-customer facing. But it totally ignores the service industry which is a huge part of our society (and arguably even more so if we end up working less!). You will still want an Uber after 5pm, or a shop or restaurant to be open on a public holiday. 4 Day work weeks, shorter hours - all great ideas but all ideas that either negatively impact the poorest portion of our society. Even universal basic income, which ostensibly would have a positive impact there would still not allow those individuals to work less. Which is why my challenge is always; first we need to automate out the poorest roles in society (and then give them UBI obviously) before we solve our own lengthy work weeks.
- jokethrowaway 4y ago
  No matter how much currency you give the poor in society, there won't be an incentive to reward people which provide zero value. Prices will just go up. How much free time you have could very well be a function of how valuable / hard to automate your work is.
  - mrpotato 4y ago
    > there won't be an incentive to reward people which provide zero value. I am assuming you mean "who don't work" when you say provide zero value. The poor encompass more than just people living in a cardboard box in some alley. There are poor people living paycheck to paycheck who are barely able to afford food AND a roof over their head. A poor person can be a single parent with two kids who works two minimum wage jobs just to be able to provide for their family.
    - joomooru 4y ago
      Really telling when a person equates low wage with providing no value in society. So much for "essential workers" being forced to work in-person during the pandemic
coldtrait 4y ago
What country is this? I just moved to India from the US and was surprised that it was 9-6 here instead of the 9-5 I was used to. And everyone here is used to overworking.
- sdevonoes 4y ago
  Just be sure you don't acquire bad habits of the country your are living in ;)
  - coldtrait 4y ago
    Sadly I am from India, lol
    - sdevonoes 4y ago
      I just realized I misread your first message. Sorry!
      - coldtrait 4y ago
        No worries.
- known 4y ago
fendy3002 4y ago
As I've read in other reddit thread, it depends on your lifestyle. Have activities after work, near work place, especially with work colleagues? 5-6 days with low hour daily. More time to do chores and rest at weekend? 4 days work weeks
DeathArrow 4y ago
At my last workplace I had to work number of working days in that month * 8. So Op could have worked Monday to Saturday 6 hours and 4 hours on Sunday if he was a colleague of mine. I'm all in for either shorter working days or fewer working days, provided that stuff is still done. I think I can do what I do in 4 hours at most. At least 4 hours are lost.
osigurdson 4y ago
I would much rather work longer hours (even 10) and get an extra day off each week. However, shorter work days with no productivity loss are likely possible for many companies simply by cancelling unneeded meetings.
meheleventyone 4y ago
Why settle for either when you could have both? A four day week, six hours a day sounds like bliss to me! I do get the feeling of wanting way more flexibility but I also think that maybe contracting is the way to get that?
rg111 4y ago
You do not say how. If you mean in terms of productivity, I agree with you. Having a clear boundary between workday and free-time is a clear productivity multiplier for me. This is much better than one more extra day-off. I can also maintain peace of mind throughtout the week if I do not do any work at all agter designated boundary. This is true, when you want to do what you do. But when you work mostly for a paycheck, I will disagree with you. Then an extra day-off is so much better than a shorter work day.
metabro 4y ago
There just is so much work that I don’t get how working 4 days will workout. The work isn’t going to scale down. The deadlines I don’t think will change. At my company which is a very typical big sv company, no one is watching how long you work but the work needs to get done.
- high_byte 4y ago
  I think most people would prefer focused work instead of more office idle time. think less days (hopefully) lead to less meetings (hopefully) lead to better time management.
- xyzzy4747 4y ago
  The amount of work that can be done at any business is actually infinite. If companies allow people to take the weekend off, it's not such a stretch to extend it to 3 days. That said, I run a startup and even taking the weekend off feels generous to me because I see all the things not getting done.
fleddr 4y ago
I'm fully in favor of shorter work days regardless of how many days one works. However, when forced to pick between the two options, I strongly prefer working 4 full days, which I have been doing for more than a decade. It could be just me, but I find the value of stopping around 3-4pm versus 5-6pm to be pretty limited. You still have this feeling that the main part of the day is almost over and you can't do any substantial personal tasks or serious relaxing before the dinner ritual. Also, when you're the exception in your team to leave early, you're effectively "disappointing" your team every single day that you work. Where others might have 4PM meetings, you're never available. This invites a feeling of guilt, where you start to make exceptions, and incidentally stay longer. Others are learning that your 4-6pm unavailability is quite soft. Further, every single morning you're behind in email and chat, needing to go through what happened late in the previous day whilst others are already up to speed. With a real day off (4 day workweek), you have a full day to do something really substantial. Time feels plentiful rather than scarce. A full day off is a barrier that is much easier to defend. You're just not available at all on that day, and work and expectations easily adapt to that. Overall, I think the problem with modern office work is that it's far too collaborative. We've normalized being in meetings for half of the day and having hundreds of emails and chat messages to wade through, whilst the actual work takes a back seat. If you'd have a clean and clear work package, you could do the work in that package at your convenience in whatever way fits best in your life. But we don't have that. We start the morning fresh with an idea of goals for the day in mind, and at the end of the day we did almost none of it. Everything changed throughout the day. Too many dependencies, too many moving parts. That's the real problem.
spacemanmatt 4y ago
I can't remember an office in my past 15 years, where anything got done after 2 or 3pm. When I started WFH I optimized for my "peak times" and mostly blew off trying to do anything off-peak. MUCH happier now.
- bobro 4y ago
  Same here. I get a lot done from 9-11 and 1-3. I’ll do little things outside those windows, but I won’t push myself if I’m not feeling it. Still plenty productive.
alistairSH 4y ago
I think it depends on the total number of hours per week. If we assume 40 hours regardless, I’d rather spread it out over 5x8 than work 4x10. Ten hours is just too long - even after 8, I’m mentally cooked. If we’re shortening the work week by 4 hours, I’d rather take that as a single afternoon off. 4x8, then Friday is a half day (vs shortening 5 days by a fraction of an hour). If we were to go to a 32 hour week, I’d probably want to just do 4x8 and have a 3 day weekend. That allows so many options for short trips, major home projects, camping, going downtown, etc. With the current 2-day weekend, I always feel torn between doing things that are fun vs doing chores. It’s never quite enough time.
irrational 4y ago
This is the great thing about remote working. When I worked in the office I felt like I needed to be seen working, even if I really wasn’t because, let’s face it, programming often requires time not working to allow your subconscious to figure out the solution to the problem you are working on. So I would have my butt in the seat, but wasn’t actually doing anything. Now with remote work I can go for a walk, do the dishes, etc. while my mind is working through things. I get just as much actual work done (if not more), but I no longer need to pretend to be doing something for appearance sake.
- high_byte 4y ago
  yes. people don't realize this, but IT'S OKAY to take a break... in my last office, besides dragging feet to get coffee it seemed people wouldn't even go stretch for 10 seconds. they even bought a brand new PS5 and NEVER even played for months and months (and it probably still accumulates dust over there...) it seemed inhumane - and crazy nobody told them it wasn't okay or anything... I like getting some sun, let the blood flow, things like that. it's not only okay, it's highly recommended - even necessary.
  - jacobr1 4y ago
    This is one of the reasons diversity (in this case neural diversity) is important in the office. I've worked in a number of startup where theoretically take breaks, playing video game, going for a walk, whatever was supported, but in practice nobody did it. But all it takes (when the management is supportive) is 1 or 2 outgoing people that make a point to prod their colleagues to do something. Working with a few people that say, "hey, who wants to go play drisbee in 15 minutes" or "pinball tournament after lunch" makes the work environment much more enjoyable. On the other side, the company driven "mandatory fun" is a drag. It needs to be opt-in, often spontaneous, and supported by culture.
    - irrational 4y ago
      >"hey, who wants to go play drisbee in 15 minutes" or "pinball tournament after lunch" makes the work environment much more enjoyable Oh hell no. I need a break, but the last thing I want to do is take a break with other people. I'd rather sit at my desk pretending to work that go play games with other people. That is literally hell on earth. But now I can't go for a walk on my own because then I'll get questions about where I am going and why didn't I go and play their stupid game with them instead of going on a walk on my own.
cerwind 4y ago
I think this is the argument of whether to graze like a cow (working 2-4 hours 6 days a week) or work like a lion (working 9-10 hours 4 days a week). Neither is better in every case so it largely depends on what kind of work you're doing. If you're answering emails and having meetings where everyone has to sync up during the day - I'd opt for the first one. If you're developing or coding where the time of day is irrelevant - I'd go for the second.
- ParetoOptimal 4y ago
  > graze like a cow (working 2-4 hours 6 days a week) or work like a lion (working 9-10 hours 4 days a week). I would dislike both of those.
tlarkworthy 4y ago
I have done both and IMHO a Wednesday off where you can totally disconnect is worth more for mental well-being than shaving some time off everyday but otherwise doing 5 days a week.
Kalanos 4y ago
3 days is long enough to go somewhere
bodge5000 4y ago
Funnily enough Im more the opposite. Give me 10 hour days for 3 days a week and I'd jump at the chance. An extra 2 hours at the end of the day isnt much to get used to, but being able to spend more full days not working than working would mean a lot to me. That vs the proposed 6-hour 4-day week some people mentioned in this thread, it'd be very happy with either obviously, but I still think I'd go for 3 days if I had to choose.
- sph 4y ago
  Your brain and body recharges every night. Memory function actually improves over night. Doing more hours doesn't make you more productive, the amount of meaningful work you can do in a day is pretty much constant. I'm definitely in the shorter days camp. In my experience there's a 2 to 4 hour peak performance window and a long tail of diminishing brain power.
  - JacobThreeThree 4y ago
    >Doing more hours doesn't make you more productive, the amount of meaningful work you can do in a day is pretty much constant. Although that may be the case for most people, I doubt there's no exceptions to this.
    - sph 4y ago
      The amount is constant for each person, but one person might have a 2 hour performance window while a 100x engineer might have a 9 hour performance peak. You can increase or sidestep it a little with performance-enhancing drugs or a healthier lifestyle, but with their downsides, changes in your environment and other aging-related issues you'll see over a long enough period that it doesn't change much.
  - bodge5000 4y ago
    > Doing more hours doesn't make you more productive Agreed, but nobody is gonna offer me 4 hours a day for 3 days a week. Being extremely optimistic, the best I can expect is 10 hour days for 3 days a week (though I dont thats gonna happen anytime soon either, so Im happy with 4 days). Shorter hours but more/same days do little to nothing for me. I mean it'd be nice, but that or less days is a very easy choice for me.
silencedogood3 4y ago
Honestly if we had Both a six hour work day and a four day work week that would be really ideal for a good work life balance. And that generally seems like the amount of Time we can be productive.
255kb 4y ago
I'm all in for both. Having an extra day to spend with my family, or doing "other things" (gardening, sport, etc.) and working less everyday. I find myself being way more productive when I know my work day is short. Having too much time on my hands makes me procrastinate! Also, after ~6h of uninterrupted work, I am usually exhausted and need to do something else. 8h/day sitting in front of a computer is a lie and a bad way to measure productivity.
artemonster 4y ago
When you work 4 days, do you take Wednesday or Mo/Fr?
sgjohnson 4y ago
I'd personally much rather an extra day off. But I do see the appeal of just having a shorter working day.
m-p-3 4y ago
Personally I prefer 4 days workweeks, especially if I need to commute. Just having one less day of commute per week really makes a difference.
hgs3 4y ago
Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t think a four day work week is radical enough. A web developer today is easily 5x more productive than a web developer 30 years ago: we have off the shelf databases, frameworks, and a huge ecosystem of open source libraries. If I can produce the same output as a web developer 30 years ago, but at 1/5th the time, then why am I not working 1 day a week for the same pay? What’s the point of modern technology if it can’t free us up to enjoy life? Same goes for workers in every industry that have benefited from technology.
- akersten 4y ago
  For real. Let's start at 6 hour, 1 day work weeks, and Capital can negotiate to 8 hours/2 days from there if they don't feel like the cogs are busy enough. Because you know if we start at proposing a 4 day week, it's gonna be "well how about half days every other Friday?" Let's earn some real keep here.
- robobro 4y ago
  unionize!
- missedthecue 4y ago
  I don't understand why you deserve a huge raise in pay because someone else developed an off-the-shelf database. Investments into capital and tech go to the investor, not to you. That would be a complete mis-alignment of incentives. Why would anyone invent, develop, pay for, or work on improvements if all the benefits went to you? Should accountants have gotten massive raises across the board when Microsoft Excel was invented and they didn't have to use paper any longer? You're not more productive than a web developer in 1995, your tools are.
  - hgs3 4y ago
    > Investments into capital and tech go to the investor, not to you. I hear what you're saying about investors needing a return on their investment, but investors only exist because modern human society runs on money and the people doing the real work don't have enough of it. Human beings will naturally develop tools and technology with or without money or investors because doing so improves our lives. The problem with our modern world is we are no longer building tools to improve our life, but rather turn a profit. Any "improvements" we've had are merely a side effect of the unnatural need for money rather than a better life. I'd argue we'd see more innovation if people had more free time to innovate rather than waste their lives in corporate slavery.
kodah 4y ago
As a lead this won't help me. I have to be able to meet people from overseas and my job would be harder if my work hours dictated that I could not. Shrinking the window of days I can meet with them is very effective though.
Jedd 4y ago
Fight for what you think you want, but don't assume everyone wants what you think you want. > Standard work hours here The fact you assume we know where 'here' is implies you're in North America, but that's not a foolproof heuristic. Where are you where that's standard? > stay 10+ hours If standard hours 'there' were 9, why were you spending > 10? For context -- I am in Australia, it's a week away from winter, I would prefer a 4-day work-week be legislated as default rather than a 6-hour workday.
sidlls 4y ago
I prefer shorter work weeks. My company's return to office policy is a hybrid deal. I am very productive when I'm in the office and I use the remote days to refresh myself. On those days I generally only "work" by replying to messages and listening in on remote meetings. I've never been more productive. I get more done in my in-office days now than I did during a full week either during the pandemic or before it.
robobro 4y ago
Iww has been asking for a 4 hour day, 4 day week for a long time now.
dsr_ 4y ago
Can we agree that different people have different optimal working styles? Some people get everything done first thing in the morning and are useless in the afternoons. Some people can't get started until noon whatever their local time is. Some people can commit to 10 or 12 hour days, and if so, it's not fair to ask them to work 5 days a week at that rate. Some people work best in private offices, some at separated workstations, some at big collaborative tables, and some at home. Some do best standing, some walking, and some lying down -- all different from the ones who do best in a nice supportive chair or on a stool with no backrest. Some need an ergonomic keyboard, some need macros, some need a giant screen or 2 screens, or six. Some need screenreader software and some need speech-to-text. The relevant questions: * are they productive in some arrangement? I have seen a very very few people who seem to be always rearranging things and changing equipment and hours in a constant pursuit of distraction. The vast majority of people figure things out and settle into a steady state of productivity... * is the nature of the work conducive to the desired arrangement? If the position requires customer or vendor contact or operations response, the coverage needs to be maintained (and handoffs need to occur smoothly). * is the company culture amenable to alteration or accomodation? At one workplace, most of the people I worked with didn't come in until 11am and liked to schedule meetings at 6pm. I liked to leave around 5:30, having been there since 8 or so.
- semanticjudo 4y ago
  Saving to copy/paste on every [X workstyle] is best thread…
- barkerja 4y ago
  Agree 100% with this take. But my question is: how do you mesh all these types together and run an effective team/company? Or is that even possible?
  - helij 4y ago
    By having agreed core hours.
  - davidweatherall 4y ago
neodymiumm 4y ago
Agreed, largely because I find I'm able to efficiently use small amounts of extra time, but struggle to make productive use of an entire free day. Even working 30m or an hour less is enough to squeeze in a workout and some Anki reviews. I'm also hourly, so I can't help but assess whether the things I chose to do during that time were "worth it" compared to the compensation I missed out on.
onion2k 4y ago
I rather work 2-4 hours for even 6 days a week I wouldn't. The problem with that schedule is that you never get a break. Every day is a work day. You're always thinking about work. You always have to spend time getting ready for work, spend time commuting, spend time (or money) getting lunch. You can't just chuck some stuff in a bad and disappear to a different country for a 3 day long weekend break. The beauty of a 4 day week is that you don't have to think about work for 3 days a week. That gives you far more freedom than shorter work days.
kraftman 4y ago
I live in europe but work for a US company, so I do ~ 3pm - 11pm, and I absolutely love it. Instead of sitting inside all day while its sunny and then having free time just as its getting dark and everything is closing, I can enjoy (most) of my day, hang out with the kids for a bit while working, and then get some solid quiet work time in the evening. I ski, hike, bike, do admin etc during the week, then have my weekends completely free for family.
gituliar 4y ago
Given that we have a limited number of productive hours per day, say 3-4, the overall performance is better with 5-day workweek. Add 2-3 hours of tuning your mind, meetings, emails, etc. Which gives 5-7 hours. In line with what you said. So, next time you negotiate a raise with you manager, ask for less hours instead of more $$$.
fallingfrog 4y ago
Why not both? Or, alternatively, 3 8-hour days? I'd take a pay cut to 60% of my current salary for a 3 day work week, absolutely. I do my very best when I'm at work. But, it's dead time to me. I have a lot of ambitions, projects, I write music, I'm trying to learn to draw, I have kids, and I yet have to give 8 hours of my day to just keep the lights on. Life is too short for that! It's employee evaluation time at work right now. I always wonder: what would happen if I sat my wife down and had her write a document defending her performance as my spouse? And then I ranked her and told her whether it was satisfactory. And I had her record what she was doing with her time every day. I wonder what her reaction would be. That's pretty much how I feel about employee evaluations.
ac2022 4y ago
I agree especially with kids. I got kids, I close shop at 4pm. I get kids, go to park, pool, etc. Bring sandwiches or pick up junk food. One kid is baby, so usually drop him at home with mom. Sadly most parents especially dads work late. So I am not able to make plans with moms for after school playdates. And my wife is not very social and she doesn't like Texas afternoon heat. But there are a few dads who leave work early and we try to arrange pladates after school. Not sure if one whole day off would create as many opportunities for play as shorter work days.
0xbadcafebee 4y ago
Here's an idea: "roller coaster week" Monday: 4 hours Tuesday: 6 hours Wednesday: 10 hours Thursday: 6 hours Friday: 4 hours total: 30 hours How it works: - Monday: The second half of your day is work. Your morning is open to sleep in, get chores done, run errands, eat brunch with friends. Second half of the day should be meetings to plan the work for the week, and catch up from the previous week. - Tuesday: Very few meetings, planning and gathering items to work on for Wednesday. - Wednesday: Heads-down work, no meetings allowed, period. Turn off all communcation; this is "productivity day". You've had 2 days to get your "mise en place", and now you have 10 hours uninterrupted to churn away. - Thursday: Shorter day than wednesday, wrapping up what you didn't finish. - Friday: The first half of the day is work. Meetings to recap the week, complete any last minute details, documentation. Second half of the day enables you to get more errands done or get an early start to your weekend. The time you save allows you to rest your brain, ruminate, get more sleep, exercise, pursue a hobby. This rest time recharges your brain to enable it to do more work when you are working. The roller-coaster nature makes you think the week is pretty easy most of the time, but you know you've prepared for the hard part and can tackle it in one go. Because of the forced planning and dedicated work time, you'll be more productive than if you only got drips and drabs of interrupted work done for 5 days.
- corrral 4y ago
  Looks like hell for trying to schedule anything kid-related.
  - mbg721 4y ago
    My experience with a < 3 year old is that I go "I need to do this today, this is fine," and my boss is cool with it and somehow the world doesn't burn down.
    - corrral 4y ago
      I was thinking: 1) School (transportation to and from, parent home to see kid off to the bus and be there when it gets back, at least) 2) Child care (10-hour days, which are more like 11 when you factor in travel, would be... very expensive, if you could get anyone to do it) 3) Any scheduled after-school/after-normal-workday kids' activities whatsoever.
ajaimk 4y ago
Why not both?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
HardwareLust 4y ago
I disagree. The worst part of my day is getting up and forcing myself to get ready to go to a job I absolutely hate. Having to only do that 4 times a week versus 5 is far more important to me than getting home at 4pm instead of 6pm.
- germinalphrase 4y ago
  Do your best to not feel trapped. If you do, try to figure out how to escape. If you’re miserable everyday at work, plan an exit.
hyfgfh 4y ago
Technically 4 days would be better because of the commute and extended weekends for the employee. But as an employer 6 hours workdays would be the best, you get basically the same value of your employees, since mostly office workers don't really work the 8 and also would make then free to study. You could also go crazy and get a second or third job.
zajio1am 4y ago
Agree. I have ~30h work week and free working hours and i am aiming to do ~4 hours/day, 7 days a week. I cannot imagine how people in mentally demanding jobs like software development can keep focus on 8-hour shifts.
cwoolfe 4y ago
I currently work 32 hours per week. When I was in the the office it was a 4 day week; now that I'm remote I prefer working about 6.5 hrs per day. I negotiated this with my employer as 20% less working hours for 20% less salary. I love it. The big win for me is having ~8 hrs per week where I don't need to work AND have childcare, so if I want to sip coffee and read a book in peace & quiet, I have time to do that. Also gives time to be involved in my neighborhood, church and school, which I find satisfying. The biggest concern my companies had with this is that co-workers would hear about it, get jealous, and ask for it too. Companies also had this concern about remote-work pre-pandemic, and I think both have found these concerns to be unfounded. Especially with my current schedule, I'm available at all the times when anybody would want to talk to me anyway, so most people don't even know about this unique arrangement.
throwaway23236 4y ago
Everyone is different if I lead and required to be at my job 9-5 and I worked more of an engineering schedule I would do something like 20 hours days to try and maximize the days off you have. Would the work days suck? yes. But in my opinion working 8 hours a day already makes the rest of the day useless. I think in the end a schedule where you work to get it out of the way and then enjoy the time off would feel like I am taking more time off than I am working. I know every industry couldn't do this, but for some it's possible. If you get do it by pay month you could work 4 on the front and 4 on the back and get 21-ish days off for 8 days of work.
stevieb89 4y ago
I personally can’t focus in the mornings and have to clear up small jobs and I use 4 hours to focus. That’s probably down to the amount of emails / small jobs we deal with and my weak point is I always tend to prioritise the interesting work :)
glonq 4y ago
In a month or two my project gets transferred to new ownership and I will find myself re-negotiating for my current job. I'm 8ish hours per day 5 days per week right now. I would love to work 8x4 or 6x5 instead, but new company is full of go-getters and try-hards so I don't think my needs are a great match for their culture.
gabrieledarrigo 4y ago
I actually work 4 days a week from 3 years and a half circa, and to be honest, I simply cannot get back to the classical 5 days/40 hours jobs. I'm simply more productive, more motivated, and I finally have free time to make something else (for example: I just completed a Bachelor's degree in CS). In regards to 996, I have no gentle words for China and their work (slavery) culture: life is too short to work so much.
bombcar 4y ago
There are different kinds of "work" and generalizing to one set schedule isn't going to work for everyone. A retail clerk can likely do a 10 hour shift with little to no loss of productivity in the later hours - and some jobs basically just need a human there to monitor the process - those likely would do well on 4/10 shifts. But other kinds of work can't get much beyond six hours a day anyway, in which case spreading it out may make sense. But there's also a weird "fairness" aspect - even if everyone would be better off with varying schedules, people would think it "unfair" - and it's visible. If Sally gets paid half what you do, you never know. But if she leaves after 4 hours each day, you start to feel annoyed.
seydor 4y ago
I think the new trend should be #asynchronous work so everyone can fit work in their lifestyle in the optimal way
floxy 4y ago
¿Por qué no los dos?
Mountain_Skies 4y ago
Working from home has immensely increased the value of the lunch hour and my afternoon productivity. Spending an hour in my home, whether in the kitchen or just relaxing, recharges me in ways that sitting in the company cafeteria or in my cube never could. Even when I worked at jobs that had a nice park nearby, it simply didn't compare to the decompression and mind clearing that I get from a midday hour at home. Six hours in an office would easily collide with my point of declining productivity but at home I'm still going good at the end of the day. This is of course dependent on each individual's needs and circumstances. My manager has three kids that need feeding at lunchtime for several weeks at the end of and beginning of the school year because his wife is an assistant principal so the kids get a longer summer break than she does. He seems a bit frazzled after lunch during those periods.
pimpampum 4y ago
Why not both?
tschellenbach 4y ago
There's no free lunch
- fuzzfactor 4y ago
  Well, in my industrial suburb an entire food service industry arose to provide overtime meals to workers at the many 24/7 facilities where they were sometimes needed to work more hours than originally planned, entitling them to a top-dollar complimentary feast. Some popular restaurants, and others were kitchens not open to the public but the key was the rapid delivery of one-off orders not long after the employee accepted the overtime. But this was decades before DoorDash or Uber Eats, there weren't even any cellphones, you had to look at the paper menu and order over a land line, it was so primitive it took 20 seconds.
is_true 4y ago
Depends. I want a free day to go do something outdoors, I prefer having Wednesdays free
fredefdef 4y ago
It's all depending on the time lost in commute per days...
StanislavPetrov 4y ago
I'm the complete opposite, I'd rather work the fewest possible days, no many hours per day, in order to have a block of time off to travel and make plans to do extended non-work related things.
muzani 4y ago
It might just be that you don't like certain hours. I actually prefer 7 AM to 3 PM, with the lunch break at 3, with family. Then I spend time with family, go for a walk, etc. Early day lets me get stuff done uninterrupted. It also means I get stuff done by 3 PM, instead of 6, so there's more time to toss it to someone to look at.
GekkePrutser 4y ago
Ugh no, I would hate that. Rather fewer long days than many short ones. Having said that, I live in Spain where restaurants don't even open until 8:30pm or so. So it suits not only myself but my environment. When you describe restaurants closed at 7pm, that sounds a bit like the Nordic countries. They're really 'early birds' in my experience, which I find very odd because of the long sun hours there in Summer. When I visited a small town in Sweden, it was deserted in full daylight. I can't wrap my head aorund that. Also for my my best work is done after hours when things quiet down and I can actually concentrate... My worst hours are the mornings when I struggle to wake up.
vipulb334 4y ago
I think there's a lot of folks who want thiis! I have personally felt burnt-out when working long hours without my proper weekend - which has happened many times in my long tenure. However, I now feel - agreeing with you - that a shorter day with appropriate breaks leads to more productivity! Would be curious to see if any HN companies have gone ahead and implemented this, and if so, why! And I am also curious to know people's strategy when feeling burnt out and not getting ample time to rejuvenate/rechArge between bursts of being vErry productive!

280 points by high_byte 4y ago

taubek 4y ago

It all comes down to productivity. Who can be productive 8 hours, day after day, for years? I know people (in IT) that work 6x6hours. And both they and employers are satisfied with this arrangement.

cabirum 4y ago

n-hour workdays must include commute time, encouraging for remote work where possible. Even 3 hour days should be enough - to interact with your peers. Other than that, performance is a measure of work planned vs work done. Time to sit on your ass should not even be a thing.

spaetzleesser 4y ago

“so 9 hours and I used to stay 10+ hours in the office often. “ There is the main problem already. Stick to your working hours. Don’t do free overtime.

svennek 4y ago

I hear you. I am self employed but try to mimic the standard 37-hour work-week of my country. Most weeks I do it 6x6 instead of 5x7,5ish... 6 hours feels more productive and 6x6 feels less hard than the normal 37 over 5 days...

sokoloff 4y ago

I think it depends on the job quite a bit. For creative work, I often find it impossible to force myself to work past 4 hours in a stretch; in other cases, I can easily work 11 hours before noticing that it's been that long and I haven't even had lunch yet. My company does a version of summer Fridays, where it's very easy to take 3-day weekends every week and I very much appreciate the "extra" day and would strongly not like to go in the other direction.

truckerbill 4y ago

Flexible hours in general should be encouraged and fought for. 4x6hrs would be ideal for me, but you have to have leverage to convince most places to agree to that.

nvilcins 4y ago
Been practicing 6-hour 4-day work week schedule for a while now and I'm the happiest I've ever been. No real noticeable difference in productivity long-term, and a significant improvement in the amount and quality of personal (non-work) time.

ben_w 4y ago

I tried 10 hour days *once* for a project crunch, and that was a bad decision in every regard. If your office hours are officially 09-18, but you’re working lunchtime and until 19:00, I don’t expect that officially reducing hours is going to help, because I expect you to unofficially keep with the longer hours anyway. On that basis, I think you personally would be better off with fewer days than shorter days. On the other hand, if you keep to the shorter hours, I think either shorter or fewer days would both be an improvement, though I don’t know which is the better quality of life.

orangepurple 4y ago

Meanwhile in China... Excerpts below taken from the website https://996.icu/#/en_US https://996.icu/#/en_US What is "996"? 996 working, ICU waiting. A "996" work schedule refers to an unofficial work schedule (9a.m. ~ 9p.m., 6 days a week) that has been gaining in popularity. Serving a company that encourages the "996" work schedule usually means working for at least 60 hours a week. In early September 2016, it was said that 58.com (58同城, a classified advertisements company) introduced the "996" work schedule, without paying employees overtime who worked on weekends. The company later claimed that the schedule was only practiced managing extra workflow during peak season - September and October, and that the schedule was not compulsory. In early 2019, Youzan (有赞, a Hangzhou-based E-commerce company) announced the company would adopt "996" work schedule in the annual convention. Bai Ya, the CEO of Youzan, responded: "This will definitely be a right decision when we look back in a few years." In mid-March 2019, it was reported that JD.com (京东, a major E-commerce company) started adopting "996" or "995" work schedules in some departments. The PR posted that (Our culture is) to devote ourselves wholeheartedly (to achieve the business objectives) via Maimai (脉脉, a Chinese real-name business social network platform). Gaining more publicity only recently, this work schedule, however, has long been a known "secret" practiced in a lot of companies in China.

s5300 4y ago
There are some rich people in the US who endorse 996. Calacanis being one. Imagine trying to be a bigger piece of shit. Japan isn’t even 996 & they’re going to have to start forcing people to have kids at gunpoint or kinda implode as a nation. Near purely because of their abysmal work culture. I recall when Cards Against Humanity paid for their overseas factory workers a day off by paying for a full factory day with a quota of zero or something like that. All they asked was that the workers spend time with family & send a picture if they do anything special. A ton of heartwarming but also incredibly sad to think about pictures came in, like a family celebrating their very young child’s birthday in a closet of an apartment. Tiny little home baked cupcake with a singular candle. They wouldn’t have even gotten to celebrate that in the slightest without their day off, paid by foreigners indescribably richer than them that they’ve never met nor likely will meet.
- 4y ago

jhoechtl 4y ago

It really depends. If you live in a condo and you free time is sports, meetings friends, etc. a six hours work day is more important. If you build your house on your own, cultivate green land etc. the four day workweek is more important as these kinds of work require a lot of preparation time. Opt in models?

ThalesX 4y ago
> Opt in models? Inflamatory post but this would actually mean managers would have to manage. You can't go to a seminar and cocktail party and come back with the insights to properly manage a team where people opt in to the model that works best for them.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Managers would need to trust the team members
  - ThalesX 4y ago
    One can give all the trust in the world, but a good manager must also align incentives towards business goals and create a structure for tracking progress. Adding on top of that care and integration for the personal preferences of the team members… that would truly be a sight to behold.
    - quickthrower2 4y ago
      I agree with that.

5350-uiop-1130 4y ago

I would take 3 day weekend. Needs to be a clear delineation between work and weekend or some companies will take the p*ss. If you have 6 hour days you might find yourself still working more. For me its no contest.

qw 4y ago
I am in the same situation. I tend to get messages on Slack after hours on work days due to the different work hours, but almost never on weekends and holidays. I assume that an extra long weekend would be more beneficial.

codingdave 4y ago

I like the 4 day week, but that is because I have kids who are teenagers. Giving them some extra time each night with their parents is not important to them. But having an extra day to do something big, explore a new place, go to new museums, take small road trips, go camping, etc. - that makes a difference in their life. When they get older and go off on their own, though, I would agree with you - a short daily working routine sounds good for me personally.

jokethrowaway 4y ago
That sounds awesome! If you don't mind sharing, how do you manage school obligations?
- high_byte 4y ago
  I guess 4 day school days wouldn't be a bad idea either... of course the other day should be filled with something productive, which may or may not include "schooling" (learning) or "working" (as in creating, not paid/unpaid labor) or other form of activity.
  - gibspaulding 4y ago
    The college I graduated from for the most part didn't offer classes on Friday and I can attest that it was wonderful as a student. It meant that I could get homework done and/or work a side job on Friday and still have a proper weekend to re-coup for the next week.

dudul 4y ago

Based on everything we've learned about productivity over the past few years, I would say just do 6-hours a day as part of a 4-day week.

bin_bash 4y ago

I think people with 1 hour commutes would definitely prefer 4 day weeks

high_byte 4y ago
for me it was 30 minutes commute for only 2 days a week, usually at least one direction was carpooling with a coworker so beyond tolerable, even enjoyable at times. but more than 1 hour while driving x5 days would be a no-no for me.
MadeThisToReply 4y ago
Eh, I have a 90 minute commute and I don't mind because I go by train. Three hours a day to read! I love it. Granted I wfh 2/3 days a week; if I had this commute every day I'd probably feel differently.
madeofpalk 4y ago
On the other hand, - support remote working - have better housing closer to where people work - if people want to commute an hour each way, that's on them
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  The issue with commuting is people have partners who work elsewhere so commuting is a compromise. WFH solves this and allows commutes of up to 12000 miles.
hkt 4y ago
Very good point. (Excuse the smugness here, but I've wanglee a four day week WFH and my life is amazing)

whiddershins 4y ago

I like working long hours, but 6 hours is the absolute max for the majority of people for intense intellectual or creative work for a sustained period of time. Most super prolific creatives (painters/composers) do a routine of between 1.5 and 3 hour sessions, one or two sessions per day. Depending on the person, but very consistent once the person figures out their routine. That means 1.5 - 6 hours total. But this doesn’t include meetings and correspondence and all that jazz. I like to wake early, work a bunch, then take time in the afternoon to do non work stuff. Then I can come back at the end of the day and do another few hours. This lets me experience the world when things are less crowded, make time for family etc, while still having plenty of time for work.

988747 4y ago
Well, I'd love to have 6 hours or more of intellectual/creative work per day but in reality I get only 2-3, the rest is meetings and distractions.
- high_byte 4y ago
  me too, but instead of meetings it's about energy. I can sit 18 hours on the computer if I have to, but rarely can I code for 18 hours. (sometimes I can but usually it's something very exciting and non-work related)

samuli 4y ago

I do not think that there is a one-size fits solution. People with kids might want to opt for six hour day, to better arrange life around them, some others might enjoy more the three day weekends. Some people work on ships and work six months in twelve hour rotation and then be on vacation for six months.

mrtksn 4y ago

The thing about the 5 days a week is that at the weekends you end up doing personal stuff you neglected during the workdays. I'm not sure that having two more hours a day will free up your weekend, I'm kind of leaning to 4 days a week because you can actually have useful time. Personally, I wouldn't object to 3 days of non-stop working till the midnight to have 4 free days a week. Things won't pile up and instead of having just evenings, I will be able to leverage full days which will give me better freedom of movement away from where I live. The 5 days a week schedule is my primary reason that I'm not in a full time job since a while. I was at home at 18:20 max, yet I never had time to do anything for myself.

high_byte 4y ago
those 2 hours (actually 3+ since it's normal for 9+ hours over here) include everything from shops, sun, avoiding traffic and other things I didn't mention or think about. also allows you to plan your day differently, like working 12-6 instead of 9-3 for example. imagine waking up at 6am and only starting work at 12pm...
- Crusoe123 4y ago
  In that case being done with work at 12pm sounds like a much better deal.
twh270 4y ago
As you can probably see from the diversity of comments, this is a very subjective topic. I've seen (just in this thread) everything from "I'm fine with my 6x7" to "I'd love 3x10". Some people would find that having two extra hours a day is great; others wouldn't. For this among other reasons, I'm against a "one size fits all" policy. Give people more than one option, where it's reasonable to do so.

brnt 4y ago

I worked in the Netherlands. They had a 36 work week and asked me how I preferred to arrange those hours. I said: divide it by five please. Apparently I was the first person in their history (3k people work there! 100 years old institution) who asked for that! Everyone took either a day every two weeks off or worked 4x9hrs. A day every week or two is nice, of course, but I generally really like short days better! Doesn't leave me that exhausted and leaves a bit of time for things every day.

artemonster 4y ago
Do you know how people usually place their free day? Is it adjacent to weekend or middle of the week?
- brnt 4y ago
  Wednesday was significantly more quiet at work.

Apreche 4y ago

Why not both? 4 days, 6 hours each. Hey employers reading this. Having a hard time finding software engineers? Offer me this and I will come running. I’ll be banging on your door with my resume. Think about it.

Closi 4y ago
Are you willing to get paid 24/37 = 64% of a fulltime positions salary? If so, I think plenty of smaller employers would be happy to do this.
- quickthrower2 4y ago
  Nope. I will do more than 24/37 of the work. Probably in terms of value, just as much. (Just let me also choose what to work on and which meetings to attend)
- unglaublich 4y ago
  That's the irony. Output doesn't scale linearly with time for human workers.
- shippintoboston 4y ago
  I like how these proposals never get raised when it's the companies that suppress wages or hoard more wealth generated by their employees.
- rmetzler 4y ago
  Your calculation assumes that all working hours create equal value. I can say for me that on most jobs I had, I got like 80% done in the first 4 hours and 20% in the other half of the day. I regularly stop working when I can’t concentrate anymore and do some hours on weekend mornings instead.
  - refurb 4y ago
    At my old job we used to get Friday’s off if we worked 9 hrs the first 4 days. People just worked 8 hours and didn’t come in Friday’s.

benji-york 4y ago

I've been working 32-hour weeks for the last year. I initially thought that I'd work 4 8-hour days a week, but quickly fell into a pattern of just working however long felt right. That ended up being 7 hours a day most days. On Thursdays I tally up how many hours I have left and work the remainder on Friday to finish out the week. I suspect I'm as productive as I would be at 40-hours a week.

lbriner 4y ago
That makes the most sense. With the sort of jobs I have, there's no way I could only work up to 6 hours per day without leaving something important undone.

anotheryou 4y ago

If I give up the free day for less hours I sell more valuable hours of my time. However it's also nice to work with more energy and never have any dreading late hours where you'd rather rest a bit some days. I have a 4 day week but flexible enough so I can move hours over, but I only move 1-2h to my free day on average.

api 4y ago

I prefer the opposite. I would rather work dawn to bedtime for three or four days then have a block of time off. It minimizes context switching. I could get my head fully into work then fully out of work.

dt2m 4y ago
Exactly - context switching will make you less productive trying to fit in three different "modes" every day all week.

SemanticStrengh 4y ago

Strongly agree

corderop 4y ago

I think it's better, at least for me, to have 4-day workweeks. I feel that much more of my productive energy is wasted during work hours. Even with 6 hours in the morning, I won't be able to focus with the same intensity for a full day for me after work. I think this is because I mostly use my leisure time for studying or coding. I reckon that a parent would prefer 6-hour workdays to spend more time with their kids.

rr808 4y ago

Damn the tech bubble is bigger than I thought.

high_byte 4y ago
how so.?
- rr808 4y ago
  Everyone I know in non-tech jobs work minimum 40 hours a week. I know a bunch of people doing minimum wage jobs doing 80+ hours a week. I remember tech in the early days (and still at many jobs) working dawn to dusk. Now it seems developers are choosing between 4 day weeks and 6 hours/day? the job market is going to get a rude awakening.
  - freedom2099 4y ago
    Software engineers are hardly minimum wage jobs! And the human brain can’t sustain constant thought intensive tasks for long period of times continually… The dawn to dusk (if ever happened… I guess it depends on the country) it’s just a waste of time. Anyway I live on France and here the official working week is 35h!
    - rr808 4y ago
      Agreed they're skilled jobs and you can't write code 50 hours a week. You can write code 30 hours a week then talk with users, have design meetings, do paperwork, do first level support etc. France is a nice place to live. Everyone working 35 hrs and being on holiday so often is a good reason its economy is slowly dying.
      - freedom2099 4y ago
        Better dead and happy than overworked and depressed trying to feel the void caused by not having a life with work!
  - 4y ago

qwerty456127 4y ago

I disagree. I have 6-7 hour workdays. That's nice but no nearly as nice as another free day. I still feel like I have no time for my own life/projects. I still feel exhausted after working even 6-7-hours (because I'm not a morning person naturally yet have to go work in the morning) and the evening time (nor even an evening nap) never actually feels nice if I worked that day. I go out on Saturday, sleep until evening (the only way I can actually get pleasurable and physically regenerative sleep) on Sunday, get up and immediately start feeling bad about the fact I had no productive time for my side projects/home as another workweek starts in just some hours. I'd rather work full 8 hours a day but have 4-day workweek. Ideally I'd prefer Wednesdays to be non-working days - this way I wouldn't have to spend more than 2 days in a row working in the office. For me this would feel even better than just 3-day weekends with 4-day contiguous workweeks. 5-vs-2 feels like you live in the office and go to visit home. 4-vs-3 feels the same although notably better. 2-1-2-2 (office-home-office-home) would actually feel you live at home and go to the office to get the job done. I even feel almost sure this would boost my actual office-time productivity.

kahon65 4y ago
Change job dude, you are going to have a burn out
- qwerty456127 4y ago
  My job is easy, crisis-proof and generally fun, not to mention 6-7-hour workdays which many can only dream about (not a common thing to find at my location). I just hate getting up in mornings, having fixed time schedule and spending many days in a row working this way. But that's the standard almost everybody has to deal with. So I don't feel like changing the job. Perhaps I'm going to return to flexible-schedule gigs someday, that felt better except too insecure. I just hope the society is going to move to 4-day workweek. It's been so long since it last decreased the workweek length. In fact I only share details about my sub-optimal perceived well-being because people tend to come up with useful suggestions of relevant supplements and practices. E.g. from my own experience I can say homemade kombucha can boost after-work evening well-being significantly (feels like some batches boost serotonin or something like that).

ErrantX 4y ago

So I am seeing more and more of ideas like this; but I feel the need to challenge them a bit. Not the ideal; work less, have more fulfilling lives - I am all in. But all of these initiatives are focused on the wealthier office workers and sometimes factory/shift workers who are non-customer facing. But it totally ignores the service industry which is a huge part of our society (and arguably even more so if we end up working less!). You will still want an Uber after 5pm, or a shop or restaurant to be open on a public holiday. 4 Day work weeks, shorter hours - all great ideas but all ideas that either negatively impact the poorest portion of our society. Even universal basic income, which ostensibly would have a positive impact there would still not allow those individuals to work less. Which is why my challenge is always; first we need to automate out the poorest roles in society (and then give them UBI obviously) before we solve our own lengthy work weeks.

jokethrowaway 4y ago
No matter how much currency you give the poor in society, there won't be an incentive to reward people which provide zero value. Prices will just go up. How much free time you have could very well be a function of how valuable / hard to automate your work is.
- mrpotato 4y ago
  > there won't be an incentive to reward people which provide zero value. I am assuming you mean "who don't work" when you say provide zero value. The poor encompass more than just people living in a cardboard box in some alley. There are poor people living paycheck to paycheck who are barely able to afford food AND a roof over their head. A poor person can be a single parent with two kids who works two minimum wage jobs just to be able to provide for their family.
  - joomooru 4y ago
    Really telling when a person equates low wage with providing no value in society. So much for "essential workers" being forced to work in-person during the pandemic

coldtrait 4y ago

What country is this? I just moved to India from the US and was surprised that it was 9-6 here instead of the 9-5 I was used to. And everyone here is used to overworking.

sdevonoes 4y ago
Just be sure you don't acquire bad habits of the country your are living in ;)
- coldtrait 4y ago
  Sadly I am from India, lol
  - sdevonoes 4y ago
    I just realized I misread your first message. Sorry!
    - coldtrait 4y ago
      No worries.
known 4y ago

fendy3002 4y ago

As I've read in other reddit thread, it depends on your lifestyle. Have activities after work, near work place, especially with work colleagues? 5-6 days with low hour daily. More time to do chores and rest at weekend? 4 days work weeks

DeathArrow 4y ago

At my last workplace I had to work number of working days in that month * 8. So Op could have worked Monday to Saturday 6 hours and 4 hours on Sunday if he was a colleague of mine. I'm all in for either shorter working days or fewer working days, provided that stuff is still done. I think I can do what I do in 4 hours at most. At least 4 hours are lost.

osigurdson 4y ago

I would much rather work longer hours (even 10) and get an extra day off each week. However, shorter work days with no productivity loss are likely possible for many companies simply by cancelling unneeded meetings.

meheleventyone 4y ago

Why settle for either when you could have both? A four day week, six hours a day sounds like bliss to me! I do get the feeling of wanting way more flexibility but I also think that maybe contracting is the way to get that?

rg111 4y ago

You do not say how. If you mean in terms of productivity, I agree with you. Having a clear boundary between workday and free-time is a clear productivity multiplier for me. This is much better than one more extra day-off. I can also maintain peace of mind throughtout the week if I do not do any work at all agter designated boundary. This is true, when you want to do what you do. But when you work mostly for a paycheck, I will disagree with you. Then an extra day-off is so much better than a shorter work day.

metabro 4y ago

There just is so much work that I don’t get how working 4 days will workout. The work isn’t going to scale down. The deadlines I don’t think will change. At my company which is a very typical big sv company, no one is watching how long you work but the work needs to get done.

high_byte 4y ago
I think most people would prefer focused work instead of more office idle time. think less days (hopefully) lead to less meetings (hopefully) lead to better time management.
xyzzy4747 4y ago
The amount of work that can be done at any business is actually infinite. If companies allow people to take the weekend off, it's not such a stretch to extend it to 3 days. That said, I run a startup and even taking the weekend off feels generous to me because I see all the things not getting done.

fleddr 4y ago

I'm fully in favor of shorter work days regardless of how many days one works. However, when forced to pick between the two options, I strongly prefer working 4 full days, which I have been doing for more than a decade. It could be just me, but I find the value of stopping around 3-4pm versus 5-6pm to be pretty limited. You still have this feeling that the main part of the day is almost over and you can't do any substantial personal tasks or serious relaxing before the dinner ritual. Also, when you're the exception in your team to leave early, you're effectively "disappointing" your team every single day that you work. Where others might have 4PM meetings, you're never available. This invites a feeling of guilt, where you start to make exceptions, and incidentally stay longer. Others are learning that your 4-6pm unavailability is quite soft. Further, every single morning you're behind in email and chat, needing to go through what happened late in the previous day whilst others are already up to speed. With a real day off (4 day workweek), you have a full day to do something really substantial. Time feels plentiful rather than scarce. A full day off is a barrier that is much easier to defend. You're just not available at all on that day, and work and expectations easily adapt to that. Overall, I think the problem with modern office work is that it's far too collaborative. We've normalized being in meetings for half of the day and having hundreds of emails and chat messages to wade through, whilst the actual work takes a back seat. If you'd have a clean and clear work package, you could do the work in that package at your convenience in whatever way fits best in your life. But we don't have that. We start the morning fresh with an idea of goals for the day in mind, and at the end of the day we did almost none of it. Everything changed throughout the day. Too many dependencies, too many moving parts. That's the real problem.

spacemanmatt 4y ago

I can't remember an office in my past 15 years, where anything got done after 2 or 3pm. When I started WFH I optimized for my "peak times" and mostly blew off trying to do anything off-peak. MUCH happier now.

bobro 4y ago
Same here. I get a lot done from 9-11 and 1-3. I’ll do little things outside those windows, but I won’t push myself if I’m not feeling it. Still plenty productive.

alistairSH 4y ago

I think it depends on the total number of hours per week. If we assume 40 hours regardless, I’d rather spread it out over 5x8 than work 4x10. Ten hours is just too long - even after 8, I’m mentally cooked. If we’re shortening the work week by 4 hours, I’d rather take that as a single afternoon off. 4x8, then Friday is a half day (vs shortening 5 days by a fraction of an hour). If we were to go to a 32 hour week, I’d probably want to just do 4x8 and have a 3 day weekend. That allows so many options for short trips, major home projects, camping, going downtown, etc. With the current 2-day weekend, I always feel torn between doing things that are fun vs doing chores. It’s never quite enough time.

irrational 4y ago

This is the great thing about remote working. When I worked in the office I felt like I needed to be seen working, even if I really wasn’t because, let’s face it, programming often requires time not working to allow your subconscious to figure out the solution to the problem you are working on. So I would have my butt in the seat, but wasn’t actually doing anything. Now with remote work I can go for a walk, do the dishes, etc. while my mind is working through things. I get just as much actual work done (if not more), but I no longer need to pretend to be doing something for appearance sake.

high_byte 4y ago
yes. people don't realize this, but IT'S OKAY to take a break... in my last office, besides dragging feet to get coffee it seemed people wouldn't even go stretch for 10 seconds. they even bought a brand new PS5 and NEVER even played for months and months (and it probably still accumulates dust over there...) it seemed inhumane - and crazy nobody told them it wasn't okay or anything... I like getting some sun, let the blood flow, things like that. it's not only okay, it's highly recommended - even necessary.
- jacobr1 4y ago
  This is one of the reasons diversity (in this case neural diversity) is important in the office. I've worked in a number of startup where theoretically take breaks, playing video game, going for a walk, whatever was supported, but in practice nobody did it. But all it takes (when the management is supportive) is 1 or 2 outgoing people that make a point to prod their colleagues to do something. Working with a few people that say, "hey, who wants to go play drisbee in 15 minutes" or "pinball tournament after lunch" makes the work environment much more enjoyable. On the other side, the company driven "mandatory fun" is a drag. It needs to be opt-in, often spontaneous, and supported by culture.
  - irrational 4y ago
    >"hey, who wants to go play drisbee in 15 minutes" or "pinball tournament after lunch" makes the work environment much more enjoyable Oh hell no. I need a break, but the last thing I want to do is take a break with other people. I'd rather sit at my desk pretending to work that go play games with other people. That is literally hell on earth. But now I can't go for a walk on my own because then I'll get questions about where I am going and why didn't I go and play their stupid game with them instead of going on a walk on my own.

cerwind 4y ago

I think this is the argument of whether to graze like a cow (working 2-4 hours 6 days a week) or work like a lion (working 9-10 hours 4 days a week). Neither is better in every case so it largely depends on what kind of work you're doing. If you're answering emails and having meetings where everyone has to sync up during the day - I'd opt for the first one. If you're developing or coding where the time of day is irrelevant - I'd go for the second.

ParetoOptimal 4y ago
> graze like a cow (working 2-4 hours 6 days a week) or work like a lion (working 9-10 hours 4 days a week). I would dislike both of those.

tlarkworthy 4y ago

I have done both and IMHO a Wednesday off where you can totally disconnect is worth more for mental well-being than shaving some time off everyday but otherwise doing 5 days a week.

Kalanos 4y ago

3 days is long enough to go somewhere

bodge5000 4y ago

Funnily enough Im more the opposite. Give me 10 hour days for 3 days a week and I'd jump at the chance. An extra 2 hours at the end of the day isnt much to get used to, but being able to spend more full days not working than working would mean a lot to me. That vs the proposed 6-hour 4-day week some people mentioned in this thread, it'd be very happy with either obviously, but I still think I'd go for 3 days if I had to choose.

sph 4y ago
Your brain and body recharges every night. Memory function actually improves over night. Doing more hours doesn't make you more productive, the amount of meaningful work you can do in a day is pretty much constant. I'm definitely in the shorter days camp. In my experience there's a 2 to 4 hour peak performance window and a long tail of diminishing brain power.
- JacobThreeThree 4y ago
  >Doing more hours doesn't make you more productive, the amount of meaningful work you can do in a day is pretty much constant. Although that may be the case for most people, I doubt there's no exceptions to this.
  - sph 4y ago
    The amount is constant for each person, but one person might have a 2 hour performance window while a 100x engineer might have a 9 hour performance peak. You can increase or sidestep it a little with performance-enhancing drugs or a healthier lifestyle, but with their downsides, changes in your environment and other aging-related issues you'll see over a long enough period that it doesn't change much.
- bodge5000 4y ago
  > Doing more hours doesn't make you more productive Agreed, but nobody is gonna offer me 4 hours a day for 3 days a week. Being extremely optimistic, the best I can expect is 10 hour days for 3 days a week (though I dont thats gonna happen anytime soon either, so Im happy with 4 days). Shorter hours but more/same days do little to nothing for me. I mean it'd be nice, but that or less days is a very easy choice for me.

silencedogood3 4y ago

Honestly if we had Both a six hour work day and a four day work week that would be really ideal for a good work life balance. And that generally seems like the amount of Time we can be productive.

255kb 4y ago

I'm all in for both. Having an extra day to spend with my family, or doing "other things" (gardening, sport, etc.) and working less everyday. I find myself being way more productive when I know my work day is short. Having too much time on my hands makes me procrastinate! Also, after ~6h of uninterrupted work, I am usually exhausted and need to do something else. 8h/day sitting in front of a computer is a lie and a bad way to measure productivity.

artemonster 4y ago

When you work 4 days, do you take Wednesday or Mo/Fr?

sgjohnson 4y ago

I'd personally much rather an extra day off. But I do see the appeal of just having a shorter working day.

m-p-3 4y ago

Personally I prefer 4 days workweeks, especially if I need to commute. Just having one less day of commute per week really makes a difference.

hgs3 4y ago

Maybe I’m crazy, but I don’t think a four day work week is radical enough. A web developer today is easily 5x more productive than a web developer 30 years ago: we have off the shelf databases, frameworks, and a huge ecosystem of open source libraries. If I can produce the same output as a web developer 30 years ago, but at 1/5th the time, then why am I not working 1 day a week for the same pay? What’s the point of modern technology if it can’t free us up to enjoy life? Same goes for workers in every industry that have benefited from technology.

akersten 4y ago
For real. Let's start at 6 hour, 1 day work weeks, and Capital can negotiate to 8 hours/2 days from there if they don't feel like the cogs are busy enough. Because you know if we start at proposing a 4 day week, it's gonna be "well how about half days every other Friday?" Let's earn some real keep here.
robobro 4y ago
unionize!
missedthecue 4y ago
I don't understand why you deserve a huge raise in pay because someone else developed an off-the-shelf database. Investments into capital and tech go to the investor, not to you. That would be a complete mis-alignment of incentives. Why would anyone invent, develop, pay for, or work on improvements if all the benefits went to you? Should accountants have gotten massive raises across the board when Microsoft Excel was invented and they didn't have to use paper any longer? You're not more productive than a web developer in 1995, your tools are.
- hgs3 4y ago
  > Investments into capital and tech go to the investor, not to you. I hear what you're saying about investors needing a return on their investment, but investors only exist because modern human society runs on money and the people doing the real work don't have enough of it. Human beings will naturally develop tools and technology with or without money or investors because doing so improves our lives. The problem with our modern world is we are no longer building tools to improve our life, but rather turn a profit. Any "improvements" we've had are merely a side effect of the unnatural need for money rather than a better life. I'd argue we'd see more innovation if people had more free time to innovate rather than waste their lives in corporate slavery.

kodah 4y ago

As a lead this won't help me. I have to be able to meet people from overseas and my job would be harder if my work hours dictated that I could not. Shrinking the window of days I can meet with them is very effective though.

Jedd 4y ago

Fight for what you think you want, but don't assume everyone wants what you think you want. > Standard work hours here The fact you assume we know where 'here' is implies you're in North America, but that's not a foolproof heuristic. Where are you where that's standard? > stay 10+ hours If standard hours 'there' were 9, why were you spending > 10? For context -- I am in Australia, it's a week away from winter, I would prefer a 4-day work-week be legislated as default rather than a 6-hour workday.

sidlls 4y ago

I prefer shorter work weeks. My company's return to office policy is a hybrid deal. I am very productive when I'm in the office and I use the remote days to refresh myself. On those days I generally only "work" by replying to messages and listening in on remote meetings. I've never been more productive. I get more done in my in-office days now than I did during a full week either during the pandemic or before it.

robobro 4y ago

Iww has been asking for a 4 hour day, 4 day week for a long time now.

dsr_ 4y ago

Can we agree that different people have different optimal working styles? Some people get everything done first thing in the morning and are useless in the afternoons. Some people can't get started until noon whatever their local time is. Some people can commit to 10 or 12 hour days, and if so, it's not fair to ask them to work 5 days a week at that rate. Some people work best in private offices, some at separated workstations, some at big collaborative tables, and some at home. Some do best standing, some walking, and some lying down -- all different from the ones who do best in a nice supportive chair or on a stool with no backrest. Some need an ergonomic keyboard, some need macros, some need a giant screen or 2 screens, or six. Some need screenreader software and some need speech-to-text. The relevant questions: * are they productive in some arrangement? I have seen a very very few people who seem to be always rearranging things and changing equipment and hours in a constant pursuit of distraction. The vast majority of people figure things out and settle into a steady state of productivity... * is the nature of the work conducive to the desired arrangement? If the position requires customer or vendor contact or operations response, the coverage needs to be maintained (and handoffs need to occur smoothly). * is the company culture amenable to alteration or accomodation? At one workplace, most of the people I worked with didn't come in until 11am and liked to schedule meetings at 6pm. I liked to leave around 5:30, having been there since 8 or so.

semanticjudo 4y ago
Saving to copy/paste on every [X workstyle] is best thread…
barkerja 4y ago
Agree 100% with this take. But my question is: how do you mesh all these types together and run an effective team/company? Or is that even possible?
- helij 4y ago
  By having agreed core hours.
- davidweatherall 4y ago

neodymiumm 4y ago

Agreed, largely because I find I'm able to efficiently use small amounts of extra time, but struggle to make productive use of an entire free day. Even working 30m or an hour less is enough to squeeze in a workout and some Anki reviews. I'm also hourly, so I can't help but assess whether the things I chose to do during that time were "worth it" compared to the compensation I missed out on.

onion2k 4y ago

I rather work 2-4 hours for even 6 days a week I wouldn't. The problem with that schedule is that you never get a break. Every day is a work day. You're always thinking about work. You always have to spend time getting ready for work, spend time commuting, spend time (or money) getting lunch. You can't just chuck some stuff in a bad and disappear to a different country for a 3 day long weekend break. The beauty of a 4 day week is that you don't have to think about work for 3 days a week. That gives you far more freedom than shorter work days.

kraftman 4y ago

I live in europe but work for a US company, so I do ~ 3pm - 11pm, and I absolutely love it. Instead of sitting inside all day while its sunny and then having free time just as its getting dark and everything is closing, I can enjoy (most) of my day, hang out with the kids for a bit while working, and then get some solid quiet work time in the evening. I ski, hike, bike, do admin etc during the week, then have my weekends completely free for family.

gituliar 4y ago

Given that we have a limited number of productive hours per day, say 3-4, the overall performance is better with 5-day workweek. Add 2-3 hours of tuning your mind, meetings, emails, etc. Which gives 5-7 hours. In line with what you said. So, next time you negotiate a raise with you manager, ask for less hours instead of more $$$.

fallingfrog 4y ago

Why not both? Or, alternatively, 3 8-hour days? I'd take a pay cut to 60% of my current salary for a 3 day work week, absolutely. I do my very best when I'm at work. But, it's dead time to me. I have a lot of ambitions, projects, I write music, I'm trying to learn to draw, I have kids, and I yet have to give 8 hours of my day to just keep the lights on. Life is too short for that! It's employee evaluation time at work right now. I always wonder: what would happen if I sat my wife down and had her write a document defending her performance as my spouse? And then I ranked her and told her whether it was satisfactory. And I had her record what she was doing with her time every day. I wonder what her reaction would be. That's pretty much how I feel about employee evaluations.

ac2022 4y ago

I agree especially with kids. I got kids, I close shop at 4pm. I get kids, go to park, pool, etc. Bring sandwiches or pick up junk food. One kid is baby, so usually drop him at home with mom. Sadly most parents especially dads work late. So I am not able to make plans with moms for after school playdates. And my wife is not very social and she doesn't like Texas afternoon heat. But there are a few dads who leave work early and we try to arrange pladates after school. Not sure if one whole day off would create as many opportunities for play as shorter work days.

0xbadcafebee 4y ago

Here's an idea: "roller coaster week" Monday: 4 hours Tuesday: 6 hours Wednesday: 10 hours Thursday: 6 hours Friday: 4 hours total: 30 hours How it works: - Monday: The second half of your day is work. Your morning is open to sleep in, get chores done, run errands, eat brunch with friends. Second half of the day should be meetings to plan the work for the week, and catch up from the previous week. - Tuesday: Very few meetings, planning and gathering items to work on for Wednesday. - Wednesday: Heads-down work, no meetings allowed, period. Turn off all communcation; this is "productivity day". You've had 2 days to get your "mise en place", and now you have 10 hours uninterrupted to churn away. - Thursday: Shorter day than wednesday, wrapping up what you didn't finish. - Friday: The first half of the day is work. Meetings to recap the week, complete any last minute details, documentation. Second half of the day enables you to get more errands done or get an early start to your weekend. The time you save allows you to rest your brain, ruminate, get more sleep, exercise, pursue a hobby. This rest time recharges your brain to enable it to do more work when you are working. The roller-coaster nature makes you think the week is pretty easy most of the time, but you know you've prepared for the hard part and can tackle it in one go. Because of the forced planning and dedicated work time, you'll be more productive than if you only got drips and drabs of interrupted work done for 5 days.

corrral 4y ago
Looks like hell for trying to schedule anything kid-related.
- mbg721 4y ago
  My experience with a < 3 year old is that I go "I need to do this today, this is fine," and my boss is cool with it and somehow the world doesn't burn down.
  - corrral 4y ago
    I was thinking: 1) School (transportation to and from, parent home to see kid off to the bus and be there when it gets back, at least) 2) Child care (10-hour days, which are more like 11 when you factor in travel, would be... very expensive, if you could get anyone to do it) 3) Any scheduled after-school/after-normal-workday kids' activities whatsoever.

ajaimk 4y ago

Why not both?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

HardwareLust 4y ago

I disagree. The worst part of my day is getting up and forcing myself to get ready to go to a job I absolutely hate. Having to only do that 4 times a week versus 5 is far more important to me than getting home at 4pm instead of 6pm.

germinalphrase 4y ago
Do your best to not feel trapped. If you do, try to figure out how to escape. If you’re miserable everyday at work, plan an exit.

hyfgfh 4y ago

Technically 4 days would be better because of the commute and extended weekends for the employee. But as an employer 6 hours workdays would be the best, you get basically the same value of your employees, since mostly office workers don't really work the 8 and also would make then free to study. You could also go crazy and get a second or third job.

zajio1am 4y ago

Agree. I have ~30h work week and free working hours and i am aiming to do ~4 hours/day, 7 days a week. I cannot imagine how people in mentally demanding jobs like software development can keep focus on 8-hour shifts.

cwoolfe 4y ago

I currently work 32 hours per week. When I was in the the office it was a 4 day week; now that I'm remote I prefer working about 6.5 hrs per day. I negotiated this with my employer as 20% less working hours for 20% less salary. I love it. The big win for me is having ~8 hrs per week where I don't need to work AND have childcare, so if I want to sip coffee and read a book in peace & quiet, I have time to do that. Also gives time to be involved in my neighborhood, church and school, which I find satisfying. The biggest concern my companies had with this is that co-workers would hear about it, get jealous, and ask for it too. Companies also had this concern about remote-work pre-pandemic, and I think both have found these concerns to be unfounded. Especially with my current schedule, I'm available at all the times when anybody would want to talk to me anyway, so most people don't even know about this unique arrangement.

throwaway23236 4y ago

Everyone is different if I lead and required to be at my job 9-5 and I worked more of an engineering schedule I would do something like 20 hours days to try and maximize the days off you have. Would the work days suck? yes. But in my opinion working 8 hours a day already makes the rest of the day useless. I think in the end a schedule where you work to get it out of the way and then enjoy the time off would feel like I am taking more time off than I am working. I know every industry couldn't do this, but for some it's possible. If you get do it by pay month you could work 4 on the front and 4 on the back and get 21-ish days off for 8 days of work.

stevieb89 4y ago

I personally can’t focus in the mornings and have to clear up small jobs and I use 4 hours to focus. That’s probably down to the amount of emails / small jobs we deal with and my weak point is I always tend to prioritise the interesting work :)

glonq 4y ago

In a month or two my project gets transferred to new ownership and I will find myself re-negotiating for my current job. I'm 8ish hours per day 5 days per week right now. I would love to work 8x4 or 6x5 instead, but new company is full of go-getters and try-hards so I don't think my needs are a great match for their culture.

gabrieledarrigo 4y ago

I actually work 4 days a week from 3 years and a half circa, and to be honest, I simply cannot get back to the classical 5 days/40 hours jobs. I'm simply more productive, more motivated, and I finally have free time to make something else (for example: I just completed a Bachelor's degree in CS). In regards to 996, I have no gentle words for China and their work (slavery) culture: life is too short to work so much.

bombcar 4y ago

There are different kinds of "work" and generalizing to one set schedule isn't going to work for everyone. A retail clerk can likely do a 10 hour shift with little to no loss of productivity in the later hours - and some jobs basically just need a human there to monitor the process - those likely would do well on 4/10 shifts. But other kinds of work can't get much beyond six hours a day anyway, in which case spreading it out may make sense. But there's also a weird "fairness" aspect - even if everyone would be better off with varying schedules, people would think it "unfair" - and it's visible. If Sally gets paid half what you do, you never know. But if she leaves after 4 hours each day, you start to feel annoyed.

seydor 4y ago

I think the new trend should be #asynchronous work so everyone can fit work in their lifestyle in the optimal way

floxy 4y ago

¿Por qué no los dos?

Mountain_Skies 4y ago

Working from home has immensely increased the value of the lunch hour and my afternoon productivity. Spending an hour in my home, whether in the kitchen or just relaxing, recharges me in ways that sitting in the company cafeteria or in my cube never could. Even when I worked at jobs that had a nice park nearby, it simply didn't compare to the decompression and mind clearing that I get from a midday hour at home. Six hours in an office would easily collide with my point of declining productivity but at home I'm still going good at the end of the day. This is of course dependent on each individual's needs and circumstances. My manager has three kids that need feeding at lunchtime for several weeks at the end of and beginning of the school year because his wife is an assistant principal so the kids get a longer summer break than she does. He seems a bit frazzled after lunch during those periods.

pimpampum 4y ago

Why not both?

tschellenbach 4y ago

There's no free lunch

fuzzfactor 4y ago
Well, in my industrial suburb an entire food service industry arose to provide overtime meals to workers at the many 24/7 facilities where they were sometimes needed to work more hours than originally planned, entitling them to a top-dollar complimentary feast. Some popular restaurants, and others were kitchens not open to the public but the key was the rapid delivery of one-off orders not long after the employee accepted the overtime. But this was decades before DoorDash or Uber Eats, there weren't even any cellphones, you had to look at the paper menu and order over a land line, it was so primitive it took 20 seconds.

is_true 4y ago

Depends. I want a free day to go do something outdoors, I prefer having Wednesdays free

fredefdef 4y ago

It's all depending on the time lost in commute per days...

StanislavPetrov 4y ago

I'm the complete opposite, I'd rather work the fewest possible days, no many hours per day, in order to have a block of time off to travel and make plans to do extended non-work related things.

muzani 4y ago

It might just be that you don't like certain hours. I actually prefer 7 AM to 3 PM, with the lunch break at 3, with family. Then I spend time with family, go for a walk, etc. Early day lets me get stuff done uninterrupted. It also means I get stuff done by 3 PM, instead of 6, so there's more time to toss it to someone to look at.

GekkePrutser 4y ago

Ugh no, I would hate that. Rather fewer long days than many short ones. Having said that, I live in Spain where restaurants don't even open until 8:30pm or so. So it suits not only myself but my environment. When you describe restaurants closed at 7pm, that sounds a bit like the Nordic countries. They're really 'early birds' in my experience, which I find very odd because of the long sun hours there in Summer. When I visited a small town in Sweden, it was deserted in full daylight. I can't wrap my head aorund that. Also for my my best work is done after hours when things quiet down and I can actually concentrate... My worst hours are the mornings when I struggle to wake up.

vipulb334 4y ago

I think there's a lot of folks who want thiis! I have personally felt burnt-out when working long hours without my proper weekend - which has happened many times in my long tenure. However, I now feel - agreeing with you - that a shorter day with appropriate breaks leads to more productivity! Would be curious to see if any HN companies have gone ahead and implemented this, and if so, why! And I am also curious to know people's strategy when feeling burnt out and not getting ample time to rejuvenate/rechArge between bursts of being vErry productive!