Lost time is never found again. That is a quote from Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin was a believer that one had to work work work. He had a famous quote where he said early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
Mr. Franklin was not the only one who believed that the more you worked the greater would be your productivity. “More, bigger, faster.” This, the ethos of the market economies since the Industrial Revolution, is grounded in a mythical and misguided assumption — that our resources are infinite. In 1914, 10-16 hour workdays were normal and six day work weeks were commonplace. There was the belief that you could never make up lost time.
Then came Henry ford in 1914 and he created the concept of the 8 hour work day. “Eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest” slogan broke the mold and ratcheted down the hours worked to the 40 hour a week norm we have today. The reason we work 8 hours a day, isn’t scientific or much thought out. It’s purely the a century old norm for running factories most efficiently. Henry Ford and the rest of the world believed that this was the way to be mostproductive.
So what does science tell us about how much time one should spend working?
What amount of work time will be most productive?
Your brain can only focus for 90 to 120 minutes before it needs a break, Widrich reports. Why? It's the ultradian rhythm, a cycle that's present in both our sleeping and waking lives. And to do our most creative, productive work, we need to step to that rhythm. Nathan Kleitman, a groundbreaking sleep researcher. He called it the "basic rest-activity cycle": Kleitman found the 90-minute pattern in our days, too, as we move from higher to lower alertness—the ultradian rhythm.
More and more of us find ourselves unable to juggle overwhelming demands and maintain a seemingly unsustainable pace. Paradoxically, the best way to get more done may be to spend more time doing less. A new and growing body of multidisciplinary research shows that strategic renewal — including daytime workouts, short afternoon naps, longer sleep hours, more time away from the office and longer, more frequent vacations — boosts productivity, job performance and, of course, health.
The 8-hour workday was implemented over 100 years ago. Since then, we have become FAR more efficient in almost every part of life and business, so why our working hours are creeping UP, not down?
Human beings can’t focus as intensely as they need to for more than 90 minutes at a time. Afterwards, they need an average of 30 to 60 minutes to rest before trying again.
For a week, try to do no more than 3 - 90 minute sprints a day with at least 30 minutes rest in between each.
Don’t succumb to the cultural bias that may try to convince you that working 8+ hours per day makes you productive. That may be true for physical labor and some repetitive tasks, but it’s not true for knowledge workers and creative types. Many people enjoy tremendous flow and achieve great results by working in short high energy, bursts of motivation and drive. Try this for yourself, and you may never want to return to the gray zone of long, unproductive workdays again.
Test it out on yourself, or on your employees. Work no more than 6 hours following the ultradian rhythm and see if one week of focusing that l you will get the most output you’ve ever had. 8 hour workdays are so 1914.
By Raúl Gorrín.
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