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Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#181

Post by mikestew »

metalliqaz wrote: post #142
_hn_throw_away wrote: post #12

(This is a duplicate of a story posted this past weekend. I want to copy my comment from it for greater visibility.) Fuck everything about 5 day work weeks. I'll gladly switch to any job that offers a 4 day work week. It's one of the best perks. As someone with ADHD, work days are entirely spent getting work done. There isn't any extra slack or allotment for personal tasks. They're 100% owned by the employer. Weekend…

You're going to have a startup that doesn't demand life-consuming overtime? I find that hard to believe.

I find that hard to believe.

Only because you've surrounded yourself with people that don't know any other way to do it. Find more creative people to hang out with.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#182

Post by technofiend »

_hn_throw_away wrote: post #12

(This is a duplicate of a story posted this past weekend. I want to copy my comment from it for greater visibility.) Fuck everything about 5 day work weeks. I'll gladly switch to any job that offers a 4 day work week. It's one of the best perks. As someone with ADHD, work days are entirely spent getting work done. There isn't any extra slack or allotment for personal tasks. They're 100% owned by the employer. Weekend…

I worked at Chevron when they were first toying with 4/40s and 9/80s. The firm decided people could either choose Monday or Friday off. It was glorious! Suddenly 40% of the schedule was free of meetings since there was no way to get a quorum on Monday or Friday.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#183

Post by AnIdiotOnTheNet »

_hn_throw_away wrote: post #12

(This is a duplicate of a story posted this past weekend. I want to copy my comment from it for greater visibility.) Fuck everything about 5 day work weeks. I'll gladly switch to any job that offers a 4 day work week. It's one of the best perks. As someone with ADHD, work days are entirely spent getting work done. There isn't any extra slack or allotment for personal tasks. They're 100% owned by the employer. Weekend…

I'm with you, though I'd go further and say that 3 day work week is probably the maximum I could be content with. I'd gladly trade half my salary for half my work hours back.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#184

Post by metalliqaz »

mikestew wrote: post #181
metalliqaz wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're going to have a startup that doesn't demand life-consuming overtime? I find that hard to believe.

I find that hard to believe. Only because you've surrounded yourself with people that don't know any other way to do it. Find more creative people to hang out with.

So... stop hanging around ycombinator? no u

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#185

Post by codesnik »

bobly_today wrote: post #162
czbond wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes - it can have that stigma. ADHD is present, however, in many entrepreneurs. It can also be a hindrance in SaaS startups, I'm mentioning it as a help. Pre-plan to have someone help with the details and keep someone on track. You either focus on opportunity, or have a project manager. I am not ADHD/ADD, but have interacted with a few in this situation..

As someone with ADHD, this is strikes me as overblown. I certainly wouldn’t require dedicated personnel to compensate for my ADHD. Especially if medicated.

and as someone undiagnosed, but very probably with it too, someone with less variable productivity than me, and in the same time not my manager, would be of enormous value to me. That shouldn't be a "dedicated personnel", as an assistant or whatever, but project manager for example would be helpful for other people too. I'll certainly try to have such an arrangement at some point.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#186

Post by riffraff »

bernierocks wrote: post #166
treyfitty wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know plenty of non unicorn startup founders that don’t work overtime, and they net about $1Mm per year. Sure, not a path to billionaire status, but not too shabby either.

That doesn't sound like a startup. It sounds like they are running a lifestyle business, which isn't a bad thing. Startups, by definition, try to scale up quickly..which means lots of money (investors) and lots of time (overtime and long hours).

I don't understand this point of view.

Developers generally agree that it's better to spend some time writing tests, as even if it increases our latency in the small term, it will improve output it in the long term.

Yet, we also seem to think that it's totally fine to sacrifice mental and physical being for the sake of short term gains instead of long term ones?

I am not saying one should not do the occasional push, but surely as a founder it's better to work 40 hours a week and keep yourself sane, than push yourself into burn out after 1 year of 70h/week and no holidays?

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#187

Post by samvher »

Miner49er wrote: post #100
ryanmercer wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don't want to spend most of my life working. I feel like a slave I've never understood this line of thinking. Providing for yourself is being a contributing member of the species, work is a means of providing for yourself. For all of human history you've either had to get up every day and go be productive bringing resources in or you had to depend upon someone else to do it for you. I see this "working is slavery"…

When you take a normal job you're submitting yourself to a tyranny. The only true power you have is the ability to quit, but depending on your circumstance, you may not even have that (seems most people don't). Plus, you quit and you'll just have to find a different tyranny. That's how it is for most people anyway. Sure there's other options like starting a business or whatever, but those are restrictive in their own…

Consuming more vs working less is totally within an individual's control though. Current productivity is amazing, even with a relatively average salary (let's say $50k) it's completely possible to spend only a third to half of that if you don't have children. That means for every week you work you get 1-2 weeks of life with no work responsibilities.

You'll have to choose that though, it means you adjust the location where you live so that rent is reasonable, and it means not constantly buying new shit. Of course if you're working for an employer you more or less have to do what they tell you but I don't think there has been any time in history that it was this easy to earn your freedom.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#188

Post by moeamaya »

AhtiK wrote: post #171
moeamaya wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We do 4-day (32 hour) work weeks at Monograph, and we've been doing it for 3 years now. I believe we're one of the only companies in SF that are advocates for working less, but more productively. Similar to Microsoft, we only have one 45-min meeting each week and then everything else is heads down work. To maintain efficiency, we also have strict Slack protocols in place to keep everyone in deep work throughout the d…

The team behind Todoist came out with a product called Twist, meant for more async and productivity focused approach and directly going against Slack distractions. I wonder if there are companies who have tried it in a bit bigger scale or why isn't Twist more known?

Thanks for the suggestion, it does seem like a compelling product. Your same questions about working at a bigger scale also give me pause to move our team off of Slack.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#189

Post by mylons »

moeamaya wrote: post #156
_hn_throw_away wrote: post #12

(This is a duplicate of a story posted this past weekend. I want to copy my comment from it for greater visibility.) Fuck everything about 5 day work weeks. I'll gladly switch to any job that offers a 4 day work week. It's one of the best perks. As someone with ADHD, work days are entirely spent getting work done. There isn't any extra slack or allotment for personal tasks. They're 100% owned by the employer. Weekend…

We do 4-day (32 hour) work weeks at Monograph, and we've been doing it for 3 years now. I believe we're one of the only companies in SF that are advocates for working less, but more productively. Similar to Microsoft, we only have one 45-min meeting each week and then everything else is heads down work. To maintain efficiency, we also have strict Slack protocols in place to keep everyone in deep work throughout the d…

right on.

Re: Microsoft 4-day week boosts productivity and sales

#190

Post by greggman2 »

I'm all for less work mostly but where is the medium. If they had done 3 days a week would their productivity jump another 25%? Two days a week? One? I'll bet at zero they have infinite productivity?

For me often my day is just busy. Update that library, write test, ask for review, start updating deps for if/when review passes. review passed. put in CI queue. Made through que. Submit deps version bump for review. Review approved, add to CI. Oh oh something broke. repeat. Entire days are just busy work. Working less hours would not remove the busy work or make it more productive. Maybe it's a bad workflow.

In any case yes , would love to work less hours but still questioning where the optimum is. Why 4 days? Why 8hrs? Why not 2 days for 2hrs etc... Is 4 only special in relation to 5? Is it 4 on 3 off or would 2 on 1 of 2 on 2 off be better? Or On Off On Off On Off Off. Is 6hrs better? 4? 10?

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