Comment by missedthecue | Hacker News Reader

Comment by missedthecue | Hacker News Reader

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If you spend only ~75% of your time working (i.e. you can finish your work in 32 hours instead of 40), does this imply that in the event your company switched to a 4 day workweek you would be busy 100% of the time?

It seems more likely that people would retain a similar ratio of slacking to working.

As an aside, how does "I finish my work in 32 hours" even work? What does that mean? Are most developers out there getting paint-by-numbers printouts they need to color in and then they're all done for the week? Almost all of my roles in a professional capacity have required self-starting, and the project life cycles are much longer than a day/week such that there is literally always work to do.

If you're building a house and you're done nailing in shingles by noon you don't go home and come back tomorrow, you go put up sheetrock or install bathroom tiles. The "I finish my work in a few hours" that I see on HN and Twitter must be extremely poorly managed teams or people that are leaving a lot of work on the rest of their teammates.

A lot of work, maybe more than any creative work, requires long breaks for the best output to be created. When you're well rested, the work often comes easily and you're hungry from it. When you're tired, it's a slog to get going and you'll procrastinate your time away. The next day is even worse.

I've managed work in software, marketing, robotics and construction. In every field I have had to send people home to rest who were doing more harm than good with their tired decision-making. Doing the work that was set for the day and going home to rest is a great productivity and morale boost, in my opinion.

Individual work capacity varies, but in my experience most people overestimate theirs by a lot.

> A lot of work, maybe more than any creative work, requires long breaks for the best output to be created.

There are many counter examples against this statement. Stephen King writes every day with no breaks, not even on Sundays.

From a recent interview he seems to write 2 to 4 hours per day, every day. That adds up to anywhere between 15 and 30 hours per week.

Personal work capacity will vary. Who knows, maybe he'd write better books if he wrote less? We'll likely never know.

First, best work =/= more work. There are middling returns but you will do more work with more time, at least if you are in execution mode.

Second, creatives have to consider the long term as well. Burnout and writer's block are real phenomenon.

Lastly, yes. Some people are just built different. Maybe you min max exercise and diet and can operate longer than an equally skilled peer. Maybe you have less family responsibilities and truly enjoy your work. These factors tend to target the average, not the top.

> It seems more likely that people would retain a similar ratio of slacking to working.

Got it in one. Humans are creatures of habit. You (yes you, oh 10x HN reader) reading this may actually be hyperaware enough to analyse your weeks work and stuff it into 4 days, but I strongly suspect the vast majority of workers would coast the same amount (whatever that number may be) regardless of days worked.

Really depends on your lens here. You calling it "slacking" implies that you see this as purposefully avoiding work. A more optimistic lens suggests that it is mental burnout and general loss of productivity.

Either way, no one is expecting 100% productivity. Or at least, they shouldn't. The question is more on a long range than week by week. Does an employee with a 4 day work week require less days off? Will the motivated ones spend more time on growth with added free time? Will retention increase? These are less opaque factors that should be considered, even if modern corporate culture doesn't value them.

The argument is that if people work fewer hours per week, then they will spend less time slacking off. And the numbers so far show that to be true.

Over the short term.

My concern is that people are consciously avoiding slacking off during the trial period but will later return to their long-run productivity once they grow accustomed to 32 hour weeks.

The other concern I have with these studies, is that these companies appear to be overstaffed in the first place. While we all have some amount of slack during our days, I doubt anyone in my team has enough slack available to get the same amount of work done in 4 days.

I’d want to see a long term study that involves lean companies and people in leas-creative roles before buying into the hype.

Well in order to study it companies need to implement it so I’m fine with that lol

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