Wednesday is the best day to work from home

Don't ask for Fridays! A mid-week remote work day boosts productivity and morale.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Good Morning, This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
This week we're talking about strategies for making remote work
efficient and effective. Today's tip is to choose Wednesday as
your work from home day. Now, I know that Wednesday

(00:25):
is not the usual first pick for a work from
home day. Normally, when people decide that they want to
negotiate such an arrangement with their managers, they go in
preparing to ask for Fridays. In many offices, Fridays are
slower than other days. When I collected a thousand and
one days of time diary data for one of my books,
I know how she does it. I found that even

(00:45):
people in very demanding jobs tend to work fewer hours
on Fridays than most other days of the week. On Wednesdays,
people logged nine hours on average. On Friday seven point
one hours. So this might seem like an easier yes
to ask for Friday. If for some reason you weren't
as productive at home as you were at the office,
well the manager isn't losing a peak productivity day. It

(01:09):
makes sense, But I've heard from a number of managers
even those who support flexible work that there's always this
nagging sense in the back of their minds that a
request to work from home on Friday's is really about
starting the weekend early Summer Friday suddenly stretch all year round.
If you work really a long hours Monday through Thursday

(01:30):
or travel on those days, your manager might sympathize with
this issue, but she might be less inclined to believe
the argument that it's about productivity. Wednesday, on the other hand,
is completely different. No one is jetting out early for
the weekend on Wednesday. The productivity argument is more believable.
You can do the focused work that was agreed upon

(01:51):
Monday and Tuesday, and then prepare for collaborative work on
Thursday and Friday. I also think psychologically that winds day
is a better day. Here's why many people want to
try working from home because they have terrible commutes. Studies
of experienced human happiness through the day have found that
people's commutes are their absolute lowest moments. I think this

(02:14):
is partly because people get used to most things that
are good and bad in life, but the push and
pull of traffic means that every day brings new suffering
in any case, if you work from home on Wednesday
and you have a horrible commute, you never have to
do it more than twice in a row. You're always
pretty close to a day when you don't have to

(02:35):
make that trip, and that can make life feel more sustainable.
If you work from home regularly on a day other
than Friday, I'd love to hear about it. You can
let me know at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart
media dot com. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks
for listening, and here's to making the most of our time.

(03:00):
M Hey, everybody, I'd love to hear from you. You
can send me your tips, your questions, or anything else.
Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram at
Before Breakfast pod that's b the number four then Breakfast
p o D. You can also shoot me an email

(03:21):
at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com.
That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all the letters.
Thanks so much, I look forward to staying in touch.
Before Breakfast is a production of I heart Radio. For
more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the i heart

(03:42):
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.