Going down to a 32-hour workweek would be lovely, but I'm simply not interested in doing 4×10. I'd rather get home at a decent hour than have an extra day off.
I work from 7-5 each day, so even when I go to the gym or run a quick errand after work I can be home by 6, which strikes me as a "decent hour", although I suppose that's subjective. Waking up at 6am takes getting used to but isn't unreasonable in my opinion.
If during rush hour you can leave work at 5 then do a workout or an errand to get home by 6, then you either live in a village or you're a winged animal.
I can't begin to explain how much less stress I encounter in day to day life having just one week day to stay home. Just having a day to be able to easily knock out chores between Jira issues; drop the car off at the dealer, sell something on craigslist, complete a house project, go to the dentist, meet the handyman, go to the bank, etc is so nice. All of these things wind up on the back burner when I'm in the middle…
Around 5 years back, I went from 5 days a week to 4, taking a 20% paycut in the process.
It was one of the best decisions I've ever made - it feels like I have so much more time for family, side projects and hobbies than I ever did before. And for reference, I work around 90% from home.
TBH, the company I work for has got a pretty good deal out of this, as I'm sure my productivity hasn't dropped at all. (it's a mega corp, so there is zero chance of negotiating back to equivalent of a 5-day salary)
As another thing to try, how about making the “standard” workday 9-4 instead of 9-5? This way, it ends up being 3 hours of work, 1 hour of lunch, then another 3 hours of work. It’s more balanced, people get an extra hour in their day to spend on themselves, and it seems that for many people, the extra hour from 4-5 is relatively low productivity compared to the rest of the day anyway.
I think it's already that way in many places. You just have to pretend to work for the other hour or two.
I'm genuinely impressed that the Overton window on hours seems to have changed since the last time the 4-day work week was in the headlines. Not that long ago, it was unquestioned that four days meant 4x10. It was simply unthinkable that we would consider less than forty hours "full time." I even skipped this article initially, expecting it to have the same assumptions! And yet, they specifically report that Shake Sh…
Service sector does not want you working 40 hours a week for benefits purposes.
You can never afford those benefits on a service sector job anyways.
I worked 4x10s when I worked for the Army and it was awesome. 3 day weekends take off so much pressure, and come Sunday night I was starting to feel the itch to get back into work rather than the dreadful feeling that I 'wasted' my weekend. The only work experience that was better than this was 100% flexibility to work remotely and/or flex hours. So there's my anecdata for you :)
My best schedule ever was also military, but it was 7-3-7-4: 7 8-hour "afternoon shift" days, then 3 days off, then 7 8-hour "day shift" days followed by 4 days off. The 3-day time off was Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday, and the 4-day was Friday through Monday - and because you were getting off the early shift and going onto the late shift, it seemed like a longer break. Of course, that implies shift work and three crews for 16-hour/7 day coverage. (The "graveyard shift" was a skeleton crew, and your turn would pop up every four months or so. Air force. It was basically for emergency landings for civil and allied aircraft and such, with some swabbing of the decks for busy work.) The work week was long, but there was plenty of time to get stuff done and to wind down. Hell, you could even cram in a weekend getaway without a lot of stress.
In a world where no one is compelled to work more than four hours a day, every person possessed of scientific curiosity will be able to indulge it, and every painter will be able to paint without starving, however excellent his pictures may be. Young writers will not be obliged to draw attention to themselves by sensational pot-boilers, with a view to acquiring the economic independence needed for monumental works, for which, when the time at last comes, they will have lost the taste and capacity. Men who, in their professional work, have become interested in some phase of economics or government, will be able to develop their ideas without the academic detachment that makes the work of university economists often seem lacking in reality. Medical men will have the time to learn about the progress of medicine, teachers will not be exasperatedly struggling to teach by routine methods things which they learnt in their youth, which may, in the interval, have been proved to be untrue.
Something felt fishy about their claim that number of hours worked has been climbing in the United States so I checked their source. It turns out that "average annual hours worked" has changed from 1,780 in 2011 to 1,786 last year. This seems like barely a rounding error... On the other hand, if you look at the FRED website it shows that average annual hours worked has massively decreased in the last 50 years: https:…
The overall average per person has declined (though not really since the 80s). However, in the same time frame, the proportion of women in formal work went from 35% to 60% [1]. So the story for men and women looks very different. Note also that for women this is a shift from domestic labor to formal labor, so it's probably not much of an increase in hours worked even though it looks like that on paper. However, in th…
Certainly, the data is inconclusive enough that you can make strong arguments either way. My issue is with NPR making a generalization and citing a source that doesn’t really back that up.
Something felt fishy about their claim that number of hours worked has been climbing in the United States so I checked their source. It turns out that "average annual hours worked" has changed from 1,780 in 2011 to 1,786 last year. This seems like barely a rounding error... On the other hand, if you look at the FRED website it shows that average annual hours worked has massively decreased in the last 50 years: https:…
> Something felt fishy about their claim that number of hours worked has been climbing in the United States so I checked their source. It turns out that "average annual hours worked" has changed from 1,780 in 2011 to 1,786 last year. This seems like barely a rounding error... This is a classic case of statistics being used to prove a different point. Perhaps the average annual hours worked is pretty much the same, bu…
I believe the FRED data I cited is per person, not per job.
To each their own. My work week is spent on work and I can't really enjoy the time before or after work. I'll never enjoy M-F. I'd rather have a 4x10 than a 5x8. If my side hustle ever graduates into a startup and I start hiring other people, we're doing 4x10 or 4x9.
Why not let your employees choose? From what I’ve seen single people love 4x10, people with kids don’t. 2 extra hours a day means my kid can’t possibly make it to practice in time 4 days a week.
No kid yet but 2 more hours working currently would guarantee that I did absolutely nothing but work and do random household bullshit for the entire time I am awake, with zero time to decompress from work.
9 hours maybe, but 10 hours? I'm a software engineer, I can't produce quality work for 10 straight hours. Most good, solid work gets done in a 4-5 hour period. 10 hours in front of a computer isn't good for anyone.