So I’d love to work 4 days and get paid for 5, but no way the workaholic CEO who prides himself on working more hours than everyone else is going to agree to it. Sorry but this just seems like some hippy dippy stuff that people in California talk about. Back in the real world, we’re happy if we get to just work 40 hours a week over 5 days.
Hmm, I’m far from Californian and thought this was a fairly practical episode. The techniques to make changes by creating policies that fail safely and by confronting the organization with “how much of X and Y do you want” reminded me of those in a very good Cal Newport interview on NPR in 2017.
Someone in a workaholic organization could apply the same techniques to get their hours from 60 to 45 or from 50 to 40.
I was reacting to the main idea of a 4 day workweek, but I did enjoy the other discussions around how to treat email, slack and meetings.
I enjoyed this episode! I have seen the impacts of distractions in my own work life, and having a very focussed profession, I find the context shifts agony, and the feeling that I do not finish things painful.
I have grown to love the focus modes on MacOS. One click and it all goes away!
Another way to look at it could be a 30 hour work week - that is what Michael Hyatt talks about - even over 5 days. I think that there is a very good argument for people in intense knowledge work that they can not be intensely focussed for 8 hours per day, and by spreading it over 5 days allows them to focus better.
Either way, there is something to this, and it was a great discussion.