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.

Why is it that work feels like it takes up the heart of our week and sucks our soul dry?

Each week, we each get 168 hours to spend. If we take off Saturday and Sunday, that leaves us with 120 hours. And let’s assume that we’re talking about a 40 hour work week. So if we start with 120 hours and then subtract from there, we can start to see where our time goes:

120 hours
– 40 hours of work = 80 hours left
– 35 hours of sleep (7 hours a night x 5 nights) = 45 hours left
– 10 hours finding, shopping, and cooking breakfast, lunch, and dinner (2 hours per day for 5 days) = 35 hours left
– 5 hours of commuting to work (30 minutes each way for 5 days) = 30 hours left
– 2.5 hours getting ready for work (30 minutes each morning) = 27.5 hours left
– 2.5 hours for errands i.e. bank, bills, laundry, etc = 24 hours left

So after you do everything you “have to do” each week, you’re really only left with 24 hours of time to do what you want to do. The reality is that the 40 hour work week isn’t really 40 hours because you have to account for getting ready for work, eating for work, traveling to work, and resting for work. You 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 are work-related is around 90.

So now what?

Here are 5 types of flexible work arrangements you can negotiate to break free from the traditional 40 hour work week.

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. When most people consider the compressed work work, they think work 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. Now you work hard for two day, take a one day break, work hard again for two days, and then take a 2 day break. That’s better than working hard 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 boxers or pajama pants, 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 meeting are better for, but that’s only a percentage of our daily work.

The big win here is getting your 10 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 prep time in half. Just don’t stand up during the meeting.

3. Early-Start Early-Depart

Both times I had a traditional job, I did this. 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. 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, but I think you just look like a slacker if you do that. 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 take 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 task that might only take you 20 hours if you really focused will take double that time because you’re expected to be doing something for 40 hours.

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 result-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 during the summer when students and gone and staff isn’t at capacity. The organization benefits in that it reduces it’s salary expense which can be helpful in tough times.

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 it 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.

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.

Hustle smarter (not harder),

Jullien Gordon
Your Side Kick in the A$$