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LET'S BE FWENDS ISSUE #88:

THE PERFECT NUMBER OF HOURS YOU SHOULD WORK IN A DAY.

“Action, as distinguished from fabrication, is never possible in isolation; to be isolated is to be deprived of the capacity to act.”
~ Hannah Arendt

Hey there everybody!

The last two weeks were quite a ride - our family moved house 646 Kilometers (this time east, back to Vienna), and as we age, we seem to collect ever more stuff that needs to be put into moving boxes (and out of them again).

So, here’s another short(ish) edition of Let’s be Fwends, in which we check what moving in might do to the floors of your new home, consider what the perfect number of working hours per day is (and how to schedule them), check the impact of hybrid workplaces on the climate, and finally have a look at common misconceptions people keep repeating (including yours truly).

The perfect number of hours you should work in a day is … five

The 8 hour/day, 5 days/week work schedule is stupid. The 10 hours/day, 6 days/week a lot of people are familiar with even more so.

You know it, I know it.

Apparently, 5 hours/day would be the ideal number of hours to work each day. But it’s not that easy. While I’d agree that it’s virtually impossible to give your full energy and attention to one particular task for more than 5 hours, this does not include the time you need to get into the proper mindset for such work), as well as the time you need to finish it up in a meaningful way (documenting it, sending it to someone, talking to someone about it …).
As a result, actually working only 5 days/week often feels rushed - the transactional costs involved carve out a substantial portion of your work time, and you might end up with only 3 or 4 hours of uninterrupted time.

For me, this doesn’t work out very well, and with some experimentation I arrived at a work schedule that is remarkably similar to the one mentioned in the article:

In a typical week, I work three long and two short days.

From monday to thursday, I work (regular) long days (around 8 hours). On thursday, I only work from the morning until noon. I use it to (re)connect with colleagues, and finish up work from the days before (for example, properly documenting workshops or meetings, and sending the documentation out).

Friday is another short day, reserved for reflection. I review the past week, empty my inboxes, tie up loose ends (if possible) and plan for the upcoming week. This gives me some peace of mind for the weekend.
I try to avoid starting anything new on this day, focussing instead of getting my mind into a state of calm. It’s basically a customised version of David Allens Weekly Review in his GTD system.

The hardest part of this is making sure that the 90 minute time-slot I’ve blocked for this actually stays interruption- and distraction-free.

How does your work week look like?

Up to 40% of workers are considering quitting their jobs

So, obviously the pandemic giving people a lot of time to think about. Amongst other things, they thought about their lives, and how they want to spend them.

Around this time last year I had various conversations about the future of work (one resulted in this talk), and I always entertained the idea that a lot of people would realise that the distinction between “work me” and “me me” is somewhat arbitrary, and how nice it is if you can do your laundry while having a break from your video call marathon, and going offline 5 minutes early every day so you don’t have to hurry to get your kids from kindergarten.

Most people I talked to were sceptical (to say the least), but in one of my rare “I told you so!” moments, I - well: told you so. As it turns out, around 40% of workers are considering quitting their jobs at their current companies, or changing careers altogether.

How big is this? It’s huge. Even if only 10% of those who now report they consider quitting their current jobs or changing their careers actually follow through, that still would be around 15 million people for whom you need replacements.

Not even talking about what that means for companies with bad organisational cultures …

The climate impact of hybrid workplaces

We heard all the stories: The COVID-lockdowns led to historically low pollution levels. Dolphins in the canals of Venice, Nature is Healing. As more and more companies adopt an either all-remote or remote-onsite-hybrid work model, and people no longer commute to the office on a daily basis, surely at least a healthy proportion of that will stay?

Sooo, that’s not really true. While commuting does have an impact, this is kinda offset by the fact that presumably a lot of people will move from the urban cores to the suburbs or the countryside - a lifestyle that is much more energy-intensive.

Also, flying still has the biggest impact on your energy footprint, and if remote-only companies keep up with their policies of having twice-a-year come-togethers for all employees (including people who usually would not fly on business matters), it might even be that a typical remote-only company is less eco-friendly than a typical office-culture organisation.

The fridge gets moved in

I’ve written about the house in which every blemish is marked with a commemorative plaque before.

And now, our house has its first dent: On Friday, 18th of June, 2021, the fridge was pushed around a tight corner, through a too small doorway, into the kitchen, leaving this scratch on the hardwood floor.

A list of common misconceptions

You remember that short, sweet year on the web when the Huffington Post was invented and everything turned into a a click-bait listicle? Do you miss that time as little as I do? Then my pal Andi Förster has just the right list for you and me:
A categorised list of commonly held misconceptions.
(Bonus points for everyone figuring out which misconception I unwittingly helped propagate recently)