I am well aware there is a movement now arguing we need to work four days a week.
I took Friday afternoon off last week, and it transformed the weekend into something much more valuable. I might have to try that again.
And because I knew this was my plan I did work hard to clear a lot of stuff to let it happen. I may not have increased my productivity, but I did concentrate on what was most important. That was of merit.
This experience is not a representative sample of anything. But it has made me wonder whether I do have better ways of organising my work available to me.
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Studies have clearly suggested that we are more productive (at least per hour) when we work less – 4 day week trials have often been successful because the same amount of work is completed while improving absence rates and employee happiness.
You also see it with some workers in a culture that expects very long hours – they may be available at all times and contributing, but you see more mistakes, and the quality of work suffers. If you have routine work (e.g. packing boxes, working a checkout, cleaning), then more hours is likely to mean more work completed to a suitable standard, but that doesn’t seem true of complex professional work, where the mistakes and quality can mean that additional work results in mistakes that take longer to sort out, resulting in negative productivity for that extra effort overall.
I’ve seen a few people that can put in 80-100 hours a week and still produce a decent quality of work, but even with those the quality of work suffers so there are at best diminishing returns. For others the best they can do is plough through any drudge work that has accumulated with that extra time.
Regardless of all of this, if AI improves productivity (as it aims to), then either we produce more in total, some people don’t have work, or people work less on average. In the first case we need to work out what goods or services we don’t already have enough of (entertainment and arts have traditionally been a part of that answer, along with medical care). In the second case, we’d need something like Universal Basic Income to avoid mass destitution. In the third we would still need some retraining and probably still some redistributive policies, but less, and this may be the path that gets the least objection about paying for others to be lazy.
Thanks
I worked compressed hours for the last year of my working life. This meant adjusting Monday to Thursday a little so that I completed my full contracted hours by Friday lunchtime and could leave. As you rightly note this extends the weekend nicely. One point I personally made was to tell almost none of my friends or relations about this. That then reserved Friday afternoons for myself and my husband alone which was extremely valued by both of us. Good luck with trying something similar and I hope it works out for you (forgive the pun!).
I will be trying it more often. It meant I did not spend Saturday ‘recovering’ this weekend as I often do.
Agreed, your life, your decision.
What might be helpful, at least for me, is for your home page to announce roughly when things happen.
Eg:
“Videos and blog posts will usually be published by **hrs on **day, **day. &…
Moderation of comments usually occurs at the following times:….
On some days these times may vary as I have a personal life outside the blog and occasionally my spouse persuades me to take a break. “
Blogs almost invariably come out between 7 and nine, although a few some get added later.
Moderation is utterly unpredictable and depends on what is happening. Today I have:
– Published four posts
– Recorded 5 videos
– Written a 1,000 word article for The National
– Done a 30 minute podcast/video for Politics Joe
– Moderated 40 comments here, so far
– Text edited two videos
– Had three significant phone calls
– Had a 25 minute snooze
Things have to fit in as they do.
When I lived in the Netherlands it was very noticeable that the tradition of small business owners taking monday morning off and chosing to open at 12 noon or 1pm was a great tradition, but it was being eroded by national scale and trans-national companies.
Customers did not expected to be able to rush to a small business at 9 am on a monday morning.
The whole arrangement seemed to work very satisfactorily. 😉
In the public sector where I work I can tell you now that Friday afternoon’s are now definitely a dead zone after 12:00 – 13:00.
POETS day (Piss Off Early Tomorrow is Saturday) is now even more established because of working from home.
And how do I know? Because I am usually working and can attest to the few that do.
Noted.
I bet they couldn’t replace you with AI, Pilgrim
Who knows Ian. I’m not indispensable at all.
if you can do the job in 4 DAYS why should you be paid for 5 days? Are we on day rates or on job rates. My plumber charged £350 for a 4 hour job another did the first hour on£100. Supply and demand.
Value is what matters
If you can do the job, why not get paid for doing the job? If you do it more quickly than others you get paid MORE as you are doing more work or are more skilled/efficient. Paying someone more for doing a job in 5 days than you pay for someone doing it in 4 days will result in people taking longer to do their job.
I run a small business. Including me, it employs 4 people. We sell a cold weather hobby product to retailers.
For six weeks in the summer we close early on Friday. The staff leave at 1pm, I stay until 2 or 3pm (once the courier has been, I leave). I pay them until 5pm. It makes the weekend so much better. I shop that afternoon on my way home from work. I have the entire weekend as down time, its great.
🙂
Since becoming a teacher 7 years ago, I’ve worked 4 days a week.
Thoroughly recommended!!
When I was an accounting trainee I was sat opposite the Management accountant and noticed he was not doing anything.
He said “I have not worked on a Friday afternoon since WW2 .I am not going to start now.”
The wisdom of age.