What is it?
There is rising attention being drawn to a specific work issue across the world… How long we work each and every week.
Most of us work for 36-40 hours a week, across a five-day schedule. This has been the norm for quite some time and it is generally how most well and able people are expected to work across the world.
However, there is growing interest for the concept of the four day work week, so much interest, in fact, that there has been a not-for-profit community established in relation to spreading the concept and adding support to the cause, called 4 Day Week Global.
The basic concept of all of this is very simple.
We work for a four day work week, and not a five.
We get three days for a weekend, and not two.
Why? Let’s talk about why.
Why does it work?
4 Day Week Global provide lots of facts and statistics and how a four day work week can be beneficial for the workers and companies involved. Here are just some of the benefits they list on their site right now in relation to the four day work week:
- 78% of employees with 4 day work weeks are happier and less stressed
- 63% of businesses found it easier to attract and retain talent with a 4 day work week
- 85% of U.S. adults already approve of moving to a 4 day week
- 1 in 3 working adults are at risk of burn out
This non-profit has put in the hours, done the research, and categorically shown that the four day work week is something that would really benefit and encourage a lot of people.
Let me add some of my own advantages of a four day work week into the mix here, from personal experience:
- Time spent working feels quicker
- Less “Sunday Night Fear”
- Higher levels of productivity within hours worked
- Higher levels of focus
- Lower levels of procrastination
- More energy throughout the day
- Less overwhelm at household chores and outside-work responsibilities
- More time for friendships, relationships, and fun
- More extra curricular activities and hobbies
- Better physical health
- Better mental health
And the list goes on… And will be different for each person who experiences a four day work week in their own life. But the main point to take away from this section is that the four day work week has advantages, long lists of advantages, and that is something we can’t ignore.
Why don’t we do it already?
Our worklives have changed a lot over the last century, and all the centuries before that. How we work now is, typically, very sedentary and includes a lot of screen and sitting down time. This wasn’t always the case.
Work used to be, for a lot of people, more physical and it very often focused on gathering essential resources for the wider community. People needed, therefore, to work as much as possible in order to provide as much as possible for their community and keep everything going smoothly.
But, this isn’t the case with our content, marketing, advertising, civil service, IT, and whatever else kind of jobs.
There really is, when you think about it, no essential need for us to be working 40+ hours a week on our jobs. If we don’t spend this time on our jobs, no-one is at severe risk and our communities aren’t plunged into despair.
Unless, of course, you have a medical or emergency response job and even then there is not the case for you needing to work for a set period of time with no wiggle room.
We are still working by rules that don’t necessarily apply to us, and no-one seems to want to be the one to change it, not yet anyway.
Much of this, now, I believe, is to due with societal attitudes towards work and work-life balance. The four day work week is rejected by a lot of people as they believe instead in “hustle culture”, in which they work as much as possible in order to get ahead in life. Working as much as possible has, unfortunately, become something that is revered in our society, and it is something people for praised for. All the while we are acknowledging that burn out is something that is a real problem facing our generation.
So, why can’t we give it up?
Why can’t we award ourselves a healthy balance with a four day work week?
Let’s do it, already!
I think we are all a little too accustomed to having things stay the way they are, and we are all worried about being the ones called lazy, or less efficient, or less driven, or less work-minded.
We are worried about change and we probably don’t know how to even begin the change.
Some things we can do to embrace this change and hopefully bring it about for more people are:
- Talk openly and honestly about your desire for a four day work week
- Support non-profit communities who advocate for these things
- Choose careers that allow flexibility and leave ones that don’t
- Work freelance or remote when you can
- Respect your needs and allow yourself to ask for what you want and for what works for you
If we all work towards making a change together, that is what makes the entire thing possible. If we stay separated and divided on the issues, then it is very hard to achieve anything even remotely like a change.
If you want a four day work week, and I can totally see why you would, the first thing you can do is get out there and talk about it. Share your thoughts, talk about the advantages, and distribute the knowledge to other people.
Something easy you can do right now is share this blog!
Share it on your social media, with your friends, with your colleagues… With whoever and however you want to!
Just start the discussion and see how far you can go with it. Never underestimate how much change just one person can make.
It can make a whole world of difference.