Even if you have a 3 day weekend, you still need to have proper long blocks off work. I used to take days off on Friday or Monday to get longer weekends in lieu of taking whole weeks. It's nice to have a long weekend but I found since taking more longer blocks (week or more) it's a lot better for you to fully switch off work (usually takes a few days to switch off completely).
Every Weekend Should Be a 3-Day Weekend (2015)
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Re: Every Weekend Should Be a 3-Day Weekend (2015)
#42I’m in the fourth decade of my career and I switched to a three day week almost a year ago, taking a proportional pay cut. I work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to get the largest contiguous block of time (Thursdays and Fridays) where the places I want to go to are family/child free. If work needs me to swap a day (e.g. to go to a Thursday meeting) I’ll often do that and occasionally I'll work longer one week and then…
Fantastic :) The closest I've got to this, is as a contractor - I don't look for new roles until one finishes. This means I get about 1-3 months between each one. 3 day work week does sound healthier, the New Economics Foundation is in favour of it too https://neweconomics.org/2010/02/21-hours Before this, I was inspired by my mother working a 3 day week (not for maternity, I had already left home when she switched).…
I decided that I would rather have continuous but predictable employment in a totally known environment rather than longer periods of time off and the pressure of finding new work (harder as you get older or if the market contracts).
Also, because I can flex my days around it is quite easy to create long periods away from work without booking too much leave. This is really useful, although I do try to remain predictable for the sake of my projects and colleagues.
Re: Every Weekend Should Be a 3-Day Weekend (2015)
#43I’m in the fourth decade of my career and I switched to a three day week almost a year ago, taking a proportional pay cut. I work Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to get the largest contiguous block of time (Thursdays and Fridays) where the places I want to go to are family/child free. If work needs me to swap a day (e.g. to go to a Thursday meeting) I’ll often do that and occasionally I'll work longer one week and then…
You’d be less of a jerk, probably. You’d have to ask my wife that. Could you ask her and write what she says? Tell her HN wants to know. :-)
She is at work so I can't ask her right now. Honest. Realistically she'd probably say that I am more relaxed for more of the time. Which probably makes me less of a jerk.
Re: Every Weekend Should Be a 3-Day Weekend (2015)
#44Three is too short. Try five?
Re: Every Weekend Should Be a 3-Day Weekend (2015)
#45There shouldn't be weekends. People should be allowed to take any 3 days off during the week. This will reduce unemployment and increase productivity.
France tried to reduce working hours to 35 hours, hoping to create jobs : it didn't go well
Re: Every Weekend Should Be a 3-Day Weekend (2015)
#46I did this when negotiating salary at my last job. I discussed this with my wife, and we agreed, that having +20% salary wouldn't improve our lives much. Working 20% less probably would. So far it seems that it worked out :-) The extra day helps for us to actually get somewhere during the weekend, and I really appreciate both having more family-time with my wife and daughter, as well as posibility to get somewhere on…
It’s plus 25%, not 20, since you’d make 5/4 the pay.
Re: Every Weekend Should Be a 3-Day Weekend (2015)
#47I agree. I'm thinking of moving to that model when my current contract comes up for renegotiation early next year. A 20% paycut is definitely liveable, and that extra day per week would make a lot of difference - either in terms of bootstrapping side projects, or just quality of life.
Other option without the paycut could be 4 10-hours a day week. Might save on gas and other thing and will still have the 3 days weekend, although day to day activities like exercise might prove more difficult to do with fewer hours every day. Tangential question: when people in the US say 9-5 work, do you take into account the lunch break or that 1 hour is still counted as workable?
Purely anecdotal: I feel like it used to mean 9-5, and somewhere in there you'd have lunch. These days I think it's more of a (misnomer) term for 8 hours of on-the-clock work, and most people are expected to go something like 8:30 - 5:30.
Re: Every Weekend Should Be a 3-Day Weekend (2015)
#48What I really need is a weekly study day: Spend a whole day just studying and reading something (which may be completely unrelated to my work). Some of my most productive ideas have come from such study.
Re: Every Weekend Should Be a 3-Day Weekend (2015)
#49Re: Every Weekend Should Be a 3-Day Weekend (2015)
#50There shouldn't be weekends. People should be allowed to take any 3 days off during the week. This will reduce unemployment and increase productivity.
France tried to reduce working hours to 35 hours, hoping to create jobs : it didn't go well
France had other issues though (iirc the employee protections are really strong so it discourages hiring in case you get a bad hire).
The problem is that it's virtually impossible to do a controlled experiment.