Do you hate working 5 days a week? You’re not alone. The 5 day work week is a leftover relic from the industrial revolution. It was discovered by Henry Ford to be the best way to squeeze maximum productivity out of factory workers making cars. It caused less injuries in the factory and allowed workers some down time to spend money on leisure activities and appliances. At the time, a 5 day work week was progress, because people were working much longer before this was implemented. Once the 5 day work week began, workers were more productive and less injuries were recorded. This has remained the same since.
So why do we still follow this 5 day working schedule in 2023? I ask myself the same question everyday and from all my research, I see no reason to continue with it, apart from hubris and rigid thinking.
Read on for my research based reasons and some understanding of why you probably hate working 5 days a week.
Human capacity to concentrate
The average adult can concentrate on a task for around 40 minutes, this varies from person to person. The maximum amount of concentration a person has during a day is roughly 4 hours, unless you are somebody who is high functioning. The general population are average though, not high functioning. The expectation that knowledge workers stick to the same schedule as a factory worker from 100 years ago is really past it’s sell by date.
For children the ability to concentrate is much less and schools still follow our industrial revolution schedule. Children that could not afford to go to school were sent to work and often injured in factories or down mines. We are still following a schedule created in a time that children were forced to work in factories. There is something very wrong with that. Non of this was created with what we know today about concentration, and knowledge based work. It was definitely not based on happiness or wellbeing.
We wonder why students or workers are so disengaged today. We are forcing most humans to work above their natural capacity. Remember, the working week was designed to get the absolute max capacity out of workers. It was based on profits for the factories, not people. Should we really be forced to max out our energy at work so we have nothing left for ourselves?
“too much of anything will make you sick”
People would enjoy school and work more if they weren’t forced to be there for such HUGE chunks of their lives. No wonder so many people hate working 5 days a week.
This takes me on to the myth that is work life balance.
The hours don’t make sense
It’s easy math to see that 5 days at work with only 2 days off will never be balanced. Balance needs to be equal, or at least fair. Work and life will never be balanced, because we spend so much of our lives at work.
Our evenings are not our own, because we have to prepare meals to take to work. We then have to get to bed on time, so we have the required energy for work. Past the age of 30, Friday night is not your own, because you’re too tired from work, so you have no energy to socialise. Saturday is your only free day, which you spend a good chunk of it sleeping in the morning, so you can recover from work. Sunday you need to do groceries, so you have something remotely nutritious to shovel down your throat, while you race to begin your commute to work the following morning. Now this is even before taking care of children is mentioned, which is a full time job in itself. Our lives are heavily one sided, with work being number one.
In days gone by, before the industrial revolution, people were working on average, 15 hours per week. The rest of the time was spent resting, chatting, creating arts and crafts and engaging with our natural world more. We are the only species to spend most of our life cycle working more than doing something recreational. I’d love to be reincarnated as a cat.
Two questions for you to ponder:
1) Is free time REALLY free time if you’re spending it recovering from and preparing for work?
2) Why does the average 38-40 hour work week not include your commute? That is 10 hours a week of travel time you are not being compensated for.
Sleep deprivation
As a sleep deprived female, suffering constantly from what is termed “social jetlag”. Social Jetlag is being forced to work against your natural circadian rhythm due to predetermined work schedules. It absolutely breaks me that I am constantly tired, because I was not born a morning person. You cannot change your circadian rhythm, it’s like trying to force Australia into winter in December. Not going to happen. The average human needs 7-9 hours of sleep a night. I’m definitely a 9 hour a night girl. I never get this amount of sleep, because I need to go to the gym after work, eat dinner and maybe talk to a fellow human before going to bed and starting Groundhog Day over again. Basic life functions such as exercise, sleeping, eating and socialising must be squished into a few hours of free time.
I am constantly sleep deprived, because I’m forced to live by an unnatural schedule created 100 years ago. Women need more sleep than men and tend to feel more feelings of agitation, anger and depression when sleep deprived. Men tend to feel more cynical when sleep deprived. Why are we continuing with a schedule that affects mental health so badly?
I constantly read articles about how terrible everybody’s mental health is. Governments are trying to do more to combat depression etc.
Let the people sleep more.
Lack of opportunities for part time work
The 5 day work week would be fine if there was an option to work less hours for less money, but very few companies offer this. 5 days or nothing is expected. If you want to work less days for less money, you’re left with few options. Zero hour contracts are what people have if they don’t want to work 5 days a week, there is no middle ground. In the U.K. there are currently 2.5 million people that are out of work, due to long term illness. I wonder how many could re-enter the workforce if more professional level jobs shares became available.
Many over 50’s are retiring early. I can’t blame them. If the only way to strike a good work life balance is to exit the workforce or take low paid jobs, then people don’t have much choice but to retire early.
The 4 day workweek trial
In 2022, multiple companies in multiple countries took on a 6 month trial of a four day work week, with no decrease in pay. It was a huge success. Not only did productivity not decline, in many areas it increased. People had more energy, they were less depressed, felt more positive about the company they worked for and were more engaged when at work. Their relationships improved and they took fewer sick days.
Nearly all of the companies in the trial will stick with the 4 day work week.
It is my hope that as we face a skills shortage in many jobs around the world that employers will be forced to switch to 4 day work week to attract and retain the best staff.
Also, if the results show increased productivity, happier staff and lower rates of sick leave, why would you NOT want to switch to a 4 day work week. it’s a no brainier.
Time for change
We have been through the industrial and tech revolutions, people have worked themselves into the ground. We have more appliances in our hands, but our relationships feel empty. Student behaviour is off the charts in schools, families barely get time to spend quality time together, single people are stuck at home feeling too tired after work to socialise or meet a significant other to spend their life with. This is not progress. It’s time to let us be human again and give us back some leisure time and stop making the population sick due to long term sleep deprivation and stress.
The world would be a kinder, happier more peaceful place if everyone just had a bit more sleep and leisure time.
If you agree that we all need a 4 day work week share this post to spread the message. Better yet, share it with your boss.
You may also be interested in reading about why full time work makes you lonely.
