It often feels like there are only 3 productive hours in typical American white collar work day.
What if we just cut out the rest?
Edit: Some great responses. So responses must have also been said about the 5 day and 40 hour work weeks.
It’d look like an 8 hour day with more overtime paid out.
you get up at 12 and start to work at 1, take an hour for lunch and then at 2 you’re done.
What about my 15 minute breaks?
I think big part of that is that the person is available to deliver service at anytime during the 8 hour work day and you have to be good at it. That’s why management allows this. They ain’t giving up 5 houra of that so they have to hire another "overpriced cost center* to fill the slot lol
Overworking certain people ends up costing more if their error rates cuts in operations.
Some meetings are BS while others are legitimately helpful - I think a 3 hr day would make those good meetings hard to squeeze in.
To be honest, while I feel while this is true for many jobs, we should also keep the people whose jobs where this isn’t possible in mind.
Sadly we are so obsessed with squeezing “productivity” en masse out of the workforce. We rarely justify technology or process enhancements that result in fewer hours worked. We generally optimize how much we get out of each hour worked. I have always had an issue with this.
Take AI for example, we are seeing some tasks automated or accelerated by AI powered tools. However, I have not heard any employers state how their employees will be able to get their work done in fewer hours. I only ever hear how people will get more done during their work hours.
The system in this way is very much broken. In an ideal world, you’d get paid for the outcome and not the hours worked, but that is not a working relationship many outside of entrepreneurs and consultants have.
It sounds great! The real trick would be finding any company willing to pay the same 40 hours of wages every week for 15 hours of work. There’s not much point to a 3 hour work day if you have work 3 different jobs
There’s not much point to a 3 hour work day if you have work 3 different jobs
Not that I’m advocating for it, but… Working 3 jobs @ 15 hours a week each would mean you’d be a lot more resilient against layoffs and would be able to quit any of those jobs at the drop of a hat if things got shitty (knowing you’d only be losing 1/3 of your income, rather than 100% of it). It would represent a solid shift of power into the hands of the workers.
True, but the whole point of having a shorter work week would be to have more free time wouldn’t three jobs kind of defeat the whole purpose? That would just mean I wake up dreading three jobs instead of one…
And all the wasted time getting from one job to the next. Even if the travel is all virtual you still have to get setup/organised, put one thing down and pick another up.
And what happens if job 2 doesn’t start for like 2 hours after job 1 and job 3 doesn’t start until 3 hours after job 2? That’s now a 14 hour day where your either working or getting ready to work with just enough “down time” to not really get too much accomplished… AND you’re going to get taxed on each paycheck. That sounds awful
i’ve been down that road before. three part time jobs means no benefits and no employer-sponsored health coverage. it’s also extremely difficult to schedule multiple part time jobs so they don’t conflict with each other while still giving you something resembling ‘weekend’ off.
3 hours a day wouldn’t be that useful. You still have to “be” somewhere 5 days a week.
What is useful; I did this for a few years; 3 x 8hr days. Mon - Wed, normal work hours, and a 4 day weekend. No need for “public holidays” even paid time off becomes less relevant, when you can switch one week to Wed - Fri. Leaving Thur - Tue as a “normal” way to take time off, giving a 6 day weekend possible every second week.
Everyone cant have all the same days off, there is already divide between service and shift workers and everyone else, a longer weekend would make it worse. The time off has to be spread around and Holidays do need to exist to make exceptions so everyone can hangout at the same time.
Agreed, but crossing over on Wed would work out for changes.
It kinda sucks that there’s a prime number of days in a week.
Good thing a week is arbitrary. Maybe we can change this!!
After 3 hours you’d go to your next job.
As opposed to going to your next job after 8 hours?
no but you could have 2 jobs and still work less.
Ok. Let’s say we have 4 hour workdays, 4 day work weeks. Not just for white collar.
A business would require to hire 2 more people to cover a 24h continuous prosuction line (3 8h shifts to 5 4h shifts).
there would be more employment and higher productivity. More happiness I suspect.
I’d take it.
6 x 4 = 24
you are entirely correct., and the first person to spot my simple math mistake.
thanks for correcting 😊
A lot has been said about that when talking about universal basic income. The idea is that people could work half shifts and make the rest up under UBI
I think the problem would be getting everyone’s 3 hours to line up.
Yes. A whole lot more would need to be asynchronous.
You couldn’t organise anything. I honestly can’t see how h the status quo can be changed.
For many office workers, it would be about the same.
Then you miss out the unmentioned part of the work - idle thinking. Not only the time spent typing something on the keyboard is work. All the time spent thinking how to solve a problem is also work.
This is true. I tend to do my best thinking away from work, and not part of my current work time.
Walking to get a coffee is when I’ve solved some of the most complex problems in my head. Walking to get a coffee was also one of the few times I’d leave my desk. What even was lunch…
Or the fact that most jobs are not behind desks or keyboard…
Office drones forget that society requires different types of work done to function… They ways got that bias lol it is cross cultural too
All the time spent thinking how to solve a problem is also work.
try telling that to every manager i’ve ever had.
“I got no work done at all today, it was all back to back meetings!”.
My wife, regularly.
That’s not how my employer measures productivity. They use keystrokes per minute. Gotta get good at idle typing.
I would struggle get anything done. 3 hours is just not enough time. Sometimes it feels like 8 isn’t even enough.
Sounds like a management issue tbh
Oh yeah it 100% is. I don’t mind though because I like being busy and of I don’t get all the work done no one faults me. Me days feel like they are 5mins long it’s great. I arrive at work get stuck in and then look at the clock and fuck its 5pm time to go home.
5 would be decent i think. If you can’t get through a “part” of a task, however you define that in your field, that should either be broken up more there are other issues
You’d get paid a lot less
Under Capitalism, sure.
Yeah under communism you wouldn’t get paid
Depends on the stage.
