As a recovering workaholic, I’ve been conducting various experiments on myself, especially regarding how, when, and where I work. I’m getting better at not working in the evening and on weekends, and now I’m exploring how to completely transform the core of my work week.
Why is it that work feels like it takes up the heart of our week and sucks our souls dry? The way we are working isn’t working and a big reason for that is the traditional Monday-to-Friday 9-to-5 work week.
Let’s start with some basic math.
Each week, we all get 168 hours to spend. If we take off Saturday and Sunday, that leaves us with 120 hours. So if we start with 120 weekday hours and then subtract from there, we can see where our time/life goes:
120 Weekday Hours
– 40 hours of work = 80 hours left
– 35 hours of sleep (7 hours a night x 5 nights) = 45 hours left
– 10 hours shopping for, cooking and eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner (2 hours per day for 5 days) = 35 hours left
– 5 hours of commuting to work (30 minutes x 2 ways x 5 days) = 30 hours left
– 3.5 hours for errands i.e. bank, bills, laundry, gas, oil change, post office, etc
– 2.5 hours getting ready for work (30 minutes each morning) = 27.5 hours left
= 24 hours left for those we love and the things we love doing
NOTE: If you have kids, I know the numbers are different.
So after we do all of our have-tos and hate-tos each week, we’re really only left with 24 hours of time to do our love-tos, want-tos, and choose-tos.
The reality is that the 40 hour work week isn’t really 40 hours because we have to account for getting ready for work, eating for work, traveling to work, and resting for work.
We only get paid for 40 hours of work, but we spend a lot of our week preparing for work and recovering from work. When you add in everything, the total number of hours that we spend doing work-related activities is around 90. For workaholics, it’s even worse. Even when workaholics are not at work, we’re usually thinking about work in some way.
So now what?
Here are 5 types of flexible work arrangements you can negotiate to break free from the traditional 40 hour work week if you have built trust with your employer or boss through consistent results and know your self-worth and value to your employer.
1. Compressed Work Week
The compressed work week means working four 10-hour days instead of five 8-hour days. It’s still 40 hours. Some of you already work 10 hour days five days per week, so structuring your week like this will give you some relief. When most people consider the compressed work work, they think of working Monday through Thursday and then have a 3-day weekend every weekend. But that’s not the only option.
You can also have a Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday schedule which I think is better because you get a break on Wednesday aka Hump Day. You work two hours longer than everyone else for two days, take a one day break, work hard again for two days, and then take a 2 day break. That’s better than working 10 hours for 4 days and being so depleted that even a 3 day weekend doesn’t feel like enough.
2. Telecommute
Telecommuting means that you can wake up in your nightwear, login to your company’s intranet and then work from home using a webcam, teleconference line, and/or internal chat and project management system to stay connected and in communication with your team. With the cloud and so many collaborative tools online, the argument for commuting to a computer is getting weaker. Of course there are some team dynamics that technology can’t replace and face-to-face meetings are better for, but that’s only a small percentage of our daily work.
The big win here is getting your 5 hours of travel time back. Perhaps your company won’t let you telecommute every day, but maybe one or two days a week will work. Since you only have to get dressed nicely above your waistline for the webcam, you can cut your daily prep time in half. Just don’t stand up during the web-based meeting. LOL.
3. Early-Start Early-Depart
Both times I had a traditional job, I did early-start early-depart. I would get to work at 6am instead of 8am and leave at 3pm instead of 5pm. First and foremost, my commute was faster because I didn’t have to deal with any traffic both ways. Secondly, I was more productive in the first two hours of my day between 6am and 8am because nobody was interrupting me with emails or “drive-by” conversations.
This is great for early birds. If you have kids, you can actually pick them up from school saving on daycare costs. I don’t have kids yet, so when I got home around 3:30 or 4pm, the sun was still up and I felt like I had a second day ahead of me because my afternoon was so long. I would eat, take a nap, and then work on my side hustle from 5-to-9pm. You could also do late-start late-depart, especially if you have morning rituals like exercising or breakfast with your family that you don’t want to rush. Just be aware that the perception—not the truth—is that you might look like a slacker coming in so late if everyone in the office isn’t on board. Sorry night owls.
4. R.O.W.E.
R.O.W.E. stands for Results Only Work Environment. If two people are paid to create a result (i.e. 100 new applicants, $20K in new sales) and one person can do it 1 hour while it takes the other person 40 hours, should they both have to be there for 40 hours? My answer is no.
The moment that companies shifted to salary from hourly pay, they are no longer paying for your time. Instead they are paying you for some result and more time doesn’t always mean better results. Parkinson’s law says that work expands to fill space and time. So oftentimes, a proposal that might only take you 20 hours if you really focused will take double that time because you’re expected to be working for 40 hours and you need to fill up the space and time.
R.O.W.E. works best for jobs where your performance is tied to a specific metric that you are 100% responsible for creating. When you hire a plumber to fix your clogged sink, he will bill you based on the price/value of that result. It could take him 2 seconds to fix it, but you’ll still have to pay the full price because time doesn’t matter. You having an unclogged sink is what matters most. If you think about your job and how your success is measured in a similar way, you may be able to negotiate a results-only-work-environment.
5. Part-Time
The 5th option is to reduce your hours from 40 to 35 or 30. Imagine only having a 6 or 7 hour work day instead of 8. A lot of colleges do this for staff during the summer when students and gone. Not only doesn’t it save the college money, but it gives the staff some relaxation during their “off season.”
While there will likely be a proportional cut in your salary, you may be willing to make this tradeoff of time for money. In most cases, you will still get to keep your full-time benefits as long as you work 30 or more hours per week. After trying part-time you may find that you’re more productive because even though you’re working less, you’ve cut out the distractions and lulls in your typical work day because you know it is shorter.
In conclusion, rather than always thinking “I need to quit my job,” how about considering simply changing the way you do your job.
Even as an entrepreneur who supposedly has control over my time, my workaholism pushes me to work, work, work until I can’t work anymore. It’s hard for me a enjoy a nice day even if my workload is light. My wife has to drag me out of my home office sometimes to go for a walk or to lunch.
When I had a traditional 9-to-5, my favorite of the 5 types of flexible work arrangements was early-start early-depart. As an entrepreneur now, I’m experimenting with the 30 hour work week because I find that it allows me to do my daily rituals in the morning (i.e. exercise, meditate, garden) and reconnect with my wife in the afternoon while the sun is still bright.
I haven’t found that my business is growing any slower with the 30 hour work week than the 40 hour work week. Perhaps I’m more productive and simply cutting off 10 hours of busy work. Or perhaps it’s just my “off season.” We’ll see.
Whether you are a employee or entrepreneur, early bird or night owl, experiment with your weekly schedule to see what conditions allow you to perform your highest as a professional, partner, and parent.
My last word of encouragement is to use your lunch breaks, vacation days, and sick days. You need that mid-day break and those periodic days off to refresh and renew. Otherwise we get burned out.
Wishing you more happy hours,
