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by Alex White

on May 30

The four day working week and how you can start living the dream

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Let’s face it, many of us never stop working.

My colleagues and I are intensely passionate about our ability to guide clients and consumers through today’s fragmented channels. However, coupled with day to day tasks, high level creative thinking can become quite overwhelming. I would argue that if we just took a little step back, the perspective provided would pay dividends far beyond that provided by hours of overtime and late night brainstorming. I want to give my clients more value but at the moment I feel they are only getting a fraction of the insight a more relaxed mind could be providing.

So what about working a four day week? Everyone seems to be talking about it but few in the marketing industry are able to follow through. When you’re rushing at the end of the week quietly screaming “I wish there was more time” maybe it would be wiser to think about being more efficient, effective and powerful with less time.

A four day working week:

  • Allows your brain to relax and be more creative
  • Forces you to work more effectively
  • Allows you to give something back to the community and your family

If we take ourselves out of the office and experience 'life' a little we should be more in touch with those that we’re marketing to and more likely to have ideas that relate to them. Powerful ideas that can't be squeezed out at 7pm the night before the pitch.

More space to think, more ideas, more chance of delivering insight and value.

"Does my job facilitate my life, or does my life facilitate my job?"

When you’re retired do you think you’ll be wishing you worked more when you were in your 30s? Or perhaps reflecting on the fact that you rarely saw your friends, spouse or children? I’m trying to explore the ideal of 'working' less and delivering better ideas that result in me retiring earlier.

The stereotypical 'idea in the shower' is based on the likelihood that you’ll have more original ideas that cross more boundaries when you’re in a different space than when you're cooped up in a boardroom with some post-it notes getting high on marker fumes. I know it’s idealistic, but I truly believe that our briefs deserve more than a rushed, drained brain can deliver. At the end of the day, you can charge more for great ideas. It just takes some trialling to observe the rewards for your clients and employees.

1 Comments

michellezamora
  • Wrote on 6 Jun, at 10:19PM
Hi - Great article! I have made the transition from a 5 day working week to a compressed 4 day week - and I have to say I love it! Yes 4 long days each week but I was working those hours anyway. The difference is that I now have a 3 day weekend each week, I am recharged and refreshed by Monday morning, my productivity and creativity has actually increased, and most importantly I have more time with my kids. It requires a desire to want to make this work, and the organisation skills to ensure that you use your time as productively as possible.

The only area of difference that I would have to the content in this article is that I would argue using social networking is one way to actually make a 4 day working week work for you - use RSS feeds to ensure all your favourite blogs are filtering to one site, use email for confidential conversations and use blogs to share your knowledge with the broader community and reduce your inbox!!!

I have written about my experience and thoughts on a compressed working week on my blog www.wondermum.blog.com I have to say - the benefits to the business and to the individual employee far outweigh any negative concerns!

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