A 4-hour workweek. Can you imagine? That's like going to work Monday morning and starting your weekend Monday afternoon. What a dream. In my research online, I came across the book "The 4-Hour Workweek" by Tim Ferriss. He was a workaholic who took a three week sabbatical to Europe. In those three weeks, he developed a new system that boosted his productivity tenfold.
In the reviews I read about the book, one advocate (Joshua Steimle) even wrote a love letter on Forbes to Tim about how much this system had changed his life. I reached out to Joshua via Twitter, and we had a brief exchange about the idea of a new norm for a workweek. My question for Joshua was what it would take for corporate America to adopt a new (a 4-day workweek, for example). His response was whether we want a new norm, or if we want no norm at all.
This completely shifted my perspective. Wouldn't it be better to just abolish the idea of a workweek altogether? We can all work when we want, where we want, how we want as long as we accomplish our objectives. Why even try to redefine what a "workweek" is? Why not just move to a new paradigm shift completely? It does make me wonder what it would take for society to be comfortable with no workweek norm at all.
It makes me think of the "certainty unbound" theme we discussed. Perhaps to see what society would become without the strains of a workweek norm, we'd have to just take a leap of faith. We'd have to go with what Bacon believed about being okay with not having all the answers. Some companies may flourish and some may fail, but we could adjust and continue testing new norms (or no norms) to see how we could benefit from systems that move away from the 40 hour workweek. Only time will tell what the workweek will become.
This is an interesting concept. Here are some TED talks about some other ideas of how to reform a business that I found to be very interesting. They mention some of the same ideas. One of which is allowing your employees complete autonomy, especially over something like the amount of time they work in a week.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrkrvAUbU9Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4vzhweOefs
I hope you find these to be interesting and helpful.
Awesome, thanks Kirsten!
DeleteI have read several articles that talk about the way in which many companies are seeing their employee's time. Just as that: the employee's and not the company's. By allowing employees to work according to their own wants or needs (eliminating the work week) they improve productivity. Some companies pay their employees to work one day a week on a personal project. Because of this, they are producing products that never would have been created on the company's time.
ReplyDeleteThere are many people who see only the extrinsic value of work. I.e. I work therefore I get money therefore I can do these fun things therefore I am happy. As opposed to those who see intrinsic value in work. I.e. I work therefore I am happy. However, I am not sure if you're really questioning the value of the work itself. I think you're just making a point that we shouldn't be so dogmatic about this forty hours thing. I don't agree that a forty hour work week is absolutely a bad thing. However, I feel like with the advent of the internet and more opportunities to work when and where you want the strict structure of the 40 hour work week will become less and less common - for good or for bad.
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