January 2, 2024 • 30 mins
In this episode Blake and Addi talk about work schedules and how they do or do not match with human and natural cycles. We've had a standardized work week for over a century and it comes from a long history. How does that actually fit the lives we live? What are ways we can reconsider work schedules so they flow better with the humans trying to conform to them?
Links:
Article: 40-Hour Work Week: Its History And Future
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Addi (00:00):
Hey everybody.
(00:00):
This is Addison Barry, andyou're listening to the Osio
Labs podcast.
The show that explores thequestion,"how can we create
sustainable businesses that carefor people and make the world a
better place?" On today'sepisode, I'm joined by Blake
Hall.
This is episode number 10, aboutthe rhythms and schedules of
work.
(00:21):
Everyone is familiar with the 40hour work week and even the
latest chatter about four daywork weeks.
Blake and I are going to diginto where the work we came from
and what that means for realpeople trying to live lives that
don't always line up with thenine to five grind.
We take a look at some of thenatural and personal rhythms in
our lives and how that affectsour work.
(00:41):
I guess a good place to startoff is just some context for why
I even wanted to do this podcastbecause originally it was
Because I want to talk about thefour day work week and just sort
of flexible schedules at work.
And then I was thinking moreabout, even outside of the work
week, like what are the rhythmsand schedules and things that
(01:05):
affect us like throughout ourlives, throughout the year, and
I was particularly struck by itbecause it's the middle of
winter, like we're approachingthe solstice, the winter
solstice here in a little bit.
It's quite dark here in Denmarkand it affects me.
It changes my, my energy.
And so i've been thinking aboutwell, how does what does that
mean for work?
Like how am I showing up forwork in these circumstances?
(01:28):
And you and I had been talkingabout this a little bit and I
think it's a The four day workweek is huge.
Everybody's talking about it.
It's All the rage, since Covidin particular, but I wanted to
also just sort of expand andtalk beyond the 4 day work week.
Because while I think that's agreat conversation.
I don't I think it's stillextremely limited in terms of
(01:51):
what we're even talking about.
Why are we talking about?
The amount of time that we're atwork in particular.
So I think to start off with, Ijust wanted to do a very quick
summary of how we got to the 40hour work week.
That is the standard in mostplaces today.
A lot of that started back inthe 1800s.
(02:14):
And that's because people wereworking more like 80 to 100
hours a week.
They were working nonstop andthat was part of the industrial
revolution.
Before that, people workedbecause they needed to, when
they needed to.
Uh, especially
Blake (02:26):
was a lot more cyclical.
Addi (02:28):
right.
Like if you're looking atsomething like farming, in the
summertime, there's moredaylight, things are growing.
You know, when harvest happens,harvest has to happen.
So you work long days and youget it done, but then in the
winter, everything sort of comesdown and the whole rhythm
changes.
But then with the industrialrevolution in the 1800s, we had
machines that changed everythingand you know, people wanted to
(02:49):
squeeze that productivity.
And it was really interestingthat, so our current 40 hour
work week that we have now.
was legally instituted in theUnited States in 1940.
So that's 80 some years ago.
And that didn't actually get,established in Canada until the
1960s.
So it's quite a bit later.
(03:10):
And then the, the article I wasreading was, is actually from a
place in the UK.
And actually, in the UK, in1998, they now have a law that
it's a 40 hour work week forworkers under the age of 18.
But it's 48 hours if you areover the age of 18.
Blake (03:30):
That blew my mind when I saw that.
Addi (03:33):
yeah.
Blake (03:35):
that was wild.
Addi (03:35):
I was like, what?
What just, wow.
sO that's sort of a sense oflike, you know, the timeline for
where this conversation has comefrom.
And also, I want to point outthat you and I work for an
American company and so ourconversation is based on the
expectations and standards thatwe have in the U.
(03:57):
S.
By and large.
I live in Denmark, and.
I mean, they have the standard40 hour work week here too, but
there are, I don't know, sort ofdifferent expectations around
work environment and things likevacation and stuff here.
So, I just want to put that outthere as context to that.
We are definitely talking aboutthis entire conversation from an
(04:17):
American lens, a Northernhemisphere lens, like, all of
these things.
So, just to establish that.
So.
It's just, it was interestingbecause I, the, in looking at
the timeline to how we got towhere we got, Henry Ford
actually started a lot of this40 hour work week thing because
(04:38):
people would normally workingsix days a week or they were
working eight, you know, 10hours a day or something along
those lines and he actuallydetermined that the Extra
productivity that you got out ofthose extra hours wasn't
actually worth it.
Like it was not significantenough to be worth it.
And so he cut his people to 40hours a week.
And that's, that was like a bigpush in, in the, uh, the overall
(05:01):
parade to get us to where we arenow.
Blake (05:05):
And looking at that from, you know, kind of a current day
situation, it's wild that one ofthe titans of industry is sort
of the one responsible forlimiting the work week in that
way.
I mean, I can't imagine,
Addi (05:19):
Mm hmm.
Blake (05:20):
you know, Jeff Bezos, for example, Deciding on a four day
work week for the folks workingat Amazon Fulfillment Centers.
That just seems, uh, very farfetched,
Addi (05:32):
Yeah.
And I mean, and it'sinteresting, right?
Because it's the sameconversation where you have,
what is productive time?
How, how, what are you squeezingout of a person?
Based on time versuseffectiveness versus, you know,
a million other ways that youcould measure their output or
(05:54):
their value.
And there's this idea of, like,squeezing is absolutely much out
of a person's time as youpossibly can and that there are
diminishing returns.
Like, it's proven over and overagain.
They're just diminishingreturns.
On that, in terms of what isproductive?
I mean, that's a whole otherconversation and I don't want to
(06:15):
go down like the, theproductivity guru, you know,
realm of things, but it'sinteresting that like, you know,
so that was like in the 1920s orsomething.
And he saw a difference between40 hours versus 48 hours.
There was a significant enoughdifference for him to make that
decision.
And people continue to look atthings now and like, you can
(06:37):
look at reports.
It's like in an eight houroffice worker day, how many of
those hours are actuallyproductive?
And it ends up being somewherebetween like two to four hours.
Blake (06:46):
Right,
Addi (06:46):
And so again, it's sort of like, what is productivity?
Like, what is it that we'reactually trying to do here?
Like, what are we trying to getout of this, this magical work
day that needs to happen?
And this can change fordifferent businesses, of course,
too, right?
Like productivity for ourcompany is very different than
productivity in, a factory forinstance, or even in.
(07:09):
Knowledge work, there are a lotof places out there that have
billable hours.
And so that, that changes theequation we're talking about a
bit.
I find it fascinating that we dobillable hours, that we charge a
third party a dollar amount foran hour of time, pretty much
(07:35):
regardless of what actuallyhappens during that hour of
time.
Blake (07:38):
Yeah, the whole, the whole concept of time is money
is sort of a fascinating thingto try to dig into.
Because when you start lookingat it, it's like, time is money,
ooh, and, and what does thatserve, right?
You sort of have Your averageworker who's selling their labor
(07:58):
in exchange for a wage tosurvive.
And then you have a businessowner trying to eat as much
productivity out of those hoursthey're paying for, so they can
make as much money as possibleand the business can succeed.
So depending on which lensyou're looking at it from the,
the time is money conversationcan, can be different.
(08:22):
And the metaphor for that cansort of be.
Kind of a, a tool to exploitpeople, or it can be, you know,
a way to secure your future, orit can be something hanging over
your head that makes you anxiousand nervous.
There's all sorts of feelingsand kind of thoughts that come
(08:43):
up with the whole time is moneything.
And I think.
A lot of folks, especially insort of American tech culture in
particular, don't really stopand think about like where that
expression came from or what theramifications of saying
something like time is moneyactually are in terms of
impacting the human beings thatmake up a business.
Addi (09:07):
Yeah.
And I mean, it's a whole otherroad of conversation is of
course, just like capitalismand, the using up of a resource.
And so time as a resource thatneeds to be, or can be
exploited, can be used and canbe exchanged for money to make
money for those in power, I knowyou had mentioned, the saving
(09:31):
time book.
And so we're not going to havelike a book chat about that.
But one of the things I foundinteresting was talking about
the history of clocks and thetracking of time.
And that also very much lines upwith the industrial revolution
and being able to coordinatethings on time and having these
schedules that are imposedimposed schedules.
(09:53):
Thank you.
Um, instead of say, naturalrhythms and schedules that are
happening, right?
Like, our day is 24 hours long.
Yes.
In Denmark, right now, my actualdaylight hours is about 7 hours.
Whereas, when we get to summer,it's more like 18.
(10:14):
It's a significant difference inwhat an actual day feels like
versus being sliced into 24pieces.
Blake (10:22):
Right,
Addi (10:23):
And so it just, that, that whole industrial revolution,
obviously, it changed a lot ofthings and technology massively,
you know, it was a massiveupheaval in society and culture,
but I think we, we don'trecognize how much things that
happened 200 years ago are stillthe rails that we're riding on
(10:46):
now, even though our technologyhas changed and pushed beyond
that.
Blake (10:50):
Right.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, one of my favoritequotes from that book, comes
kind of towards the end, but, Ithink she's quoting someone
else, but she says that insteadof thinking about time as money,
we should, we should say time Isbeans.
And, what she means by that isyou can go to the store and buy
a bag of beans and make them toeat, or you can use them as
(11:13):
seeds to grow more beans andhave that be sustainable.
And you can, you know, hand themout to other people so that they
can then make their own beans.
So instead of thinking, thinkingof time as sort of this zero sum
resource we can also think oftime as something that.
You can treat sustainably and,share it with people and, make
(11:37):
more of it.
I mean, I think, you know, astime goes by that, like the time
has different qualities, right?
Like you're talking about thedaylight hours in Denmark, but
you can also have
Addi (11:48):
Yeah.
Blake (11:49):
that you're wasting by doom scrolling on your phone or
time that you're really engagedin a book.
And the quality of that time isreally different, despite the
fact that.
They both might just be an houraccording to the clock.
And I think that, that sort ofmushiness to how we experience
(12:09):
time is, is really interestingjust in our, in, you know,
personal lives, let alone whenit comes to the workplace,
because I think the workplacereally has the same mushy
quality of time, like you'resaying a normal eight hour
workday has two to three hoursof productivity.
That's, that's pretty mushy.
There's not, it's certainly noteight hours of uninterrupted
(12:31):
productivity for.
For knowledge workers, folksoutside of a factory anyway.
But at the same time, a lot ofknowledge workers, especially if
they have to think aboutbillable hours are working
class, their, their income isdirectly tied to their
productivity, their output, thesame way that the factory
(12:53):
workers are.
And I think it's interestingthat.
That doesn't always getacknowledged, by folks that are
doing that kind of work.
So, yeah, the more you sit downand think about time and the
context and how we perceive it,and all those sorts of things,
the, the deeper the rabbit holegets, I guess.
Addi (13:13):
Totally.
And you know, speaking of mushytime, it reminds me, so, because
we've had a four day work weeknow for two years, I guess.
But when we first did it, likeI, I first introduced it and was
like, what do you all think?
And everybody's like, well,yeah, of course I want to work
less.
But.
(13:34):
I mean, like, is that gonna worklike, you know, so we agreed to
have a trial period and then wewere like, okay, well, what we
want to do is measure somethingso we can see if it's working
and it was like, what are wegoing to measure?
Like, it was, it was such amushy.
Exercise, because it was alllike, how do you feel about your
(13:58):
time?
How do you measure productivityin a non billable hours
scenario?
Like it was just such a, gray,fuzzy, I don't know, but it
feels good, so we're gonna doit, kind of
Blake (14:11):
and, and in retrospect, like even, even feeling like we
had to do that to justify it
Addi (14:17):
Totally.
Blake (14:18):
somebody is sort of an interesting situation as well.
Like, When you're talking aboutsomething like employee
happiness, it's a, it's hard tomeasure because you're talking
about, you know, feelings and,and attitudes and that sort of
thing, but also as a business,like we don't really need
permission from anybody to dosomething like that.
(14:40):
We can just do it.
We certainly don't need toprovide some sort of objective
metric that says less work isbetter.
It's just kind of
Addi (14:50):
Mm hmm.
Blake (14:51):
a choice you can make.
Addi (14:52):
Yeah.
What?
Blake (14:54):
I think, I mean, like you were saying, the Industrial
Revolution's 200 years old atthis point.
And if, if the main benefits ofthat, as folks, you know, write
that history in a thousandyears, if the main benefits of
that are a small segment of thepopulation made a whole lot of
money, and that's, and that'sthe size of the contribution the
(15:16):
Industrial Revolution made, thatwould be terrible.
And I think looking at theemergence of AI now, it's sort
of the same kind of story.
Like, are we going to use Theseefficiency improvements and the
technology that we're developingto actually improve humans
lives, or are we just going toturn out more crap faster?
(15:39):
And I think that's a, that's apretty existential question that
it seems like a lot of folks arewrestling with and probably
answering differently than
Addi (15:49):
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
Blake (15:50):
the industrialists did 150 years ago.
Addi (15:54):
Yeah,
Blake (15:55):
At least I hope that's the case, because looking,
looking back, it doesn't seemlike that turned out real great
for the environment, especially.
Addi (16:05):
so one thing I wanted to explore with you on this call.
So we have a four day workweek.
That's great.
And to clarify for, for peoplewho are listening, our four day
workweek is a 32 hour workweek.
It's four eight hour days.
It's not a compressed schedule,but we still have the idea that
(16:25):
you got to show up every weekfor your 4 days.
Like, you know, it's a, and itjust sort of marches and
exorbitantly on throughout theyear.
And of course, there's vacationsand, and other, you know,
holidays and time off.
But it's just super interestingto look.
I'm curious if having.
(16:48):
Investigated the 4 day work weekand how that affects people's
lives and what we're able to do.
And I mean, and we also have,like, a, a flexible day.
So, like.
Each person determines theirworking hours, and as long as
they communicate those, we don'tsay you have to be available
from this time to that time eachday.
(17:10):
You get to decide when you'redoing your hours.
You need to go, you know, pickyour kid up at school, then, you
know, that's your break in theday, and that's up to you.
But how about larger rhythms andschedules that we were talking
about earlier with, like, thefarming or day length and things
like that?
Because Seasons change things,not just in day length, or
(17:38):
mental health, but like for, forinstance for you, I know that
you've got, like your year, whenyou break down a year, that
looks pretty different to myyear.
Blake (17:50):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I, the biggest differencefor me is the school year.
As a parent, I have a lot more,child care situations to worry
about in the summer, justbecause we don't have a large
block of uninterrupted timewhere my daughter's accounted
for, and kept busy by otherfolks.
(18:12):
So.
Summers for me tend to be quitea bit more chaotic on that
front, just in terms of havinglarge, regular blocks of
uninterrupted work time.
I can still find those, but Ican't always necessarily say,
you know, it'll be three days aweek.
(18:33):
You know, some weeks it might beI get two of those and other
weeks there might be zero andother weeks there might be five.
It just depends on on what'sgoing on at the time.
So I certainly look forward tofall as sort of Time to buckle
down and get more productive anddo more kind of deep thinking
types of stuff just because Iknow for sure I can protect that
(18:55):
time in an easier way.
Not that I can't do that duringthe summer, but it requires more
work.
So that's a that's the biggestone by far.
And also, like you're you'resaying in Denmark, we're not
that far north and Green Bay,but we're, you know, reasonably
far north as well.
So The days do get quite a bitshorter and I do find my energy
(19:17):
level dwindling a bit this timeof year with holiday stress and,
and the extra darkness and thosesorts of things so I have to
make more of an effort to.
Eat a little bit healthier and,and exercise a little bit more
just to sort of keep my, mybaseline where it needs to be.
Otherwise things do get slow andfoggy and kind of messy this
(19:41):
time of year.
So I, yeah, I certainly feellike the year has a particular
rhythm, but I think if If youdon't have, children in a school
year to work through or workbalance against, I imagine the
year looks completely differentor it's not bound by the same.
Mm-Hmm.
Addi (20:00):
Right.
Everybody's got their own thingsthat are going on.
And I mean, also, like, forinstance, you play golf, and
like, other people playdifferent sports, and at
different times a year, theirsocial and familial obligations
just change, based on seasonalthings that are, that are going
on.
And it was interesting, Talkingabout like summers and kids and
(20:22):
so we have a team of five peoplethree of those people have young
children and We were when wewere doing our retreat and
planning the retreat we ended upchoosing to do it in September
Which was later than I hadoriginally wanted to do it, but
it was because it's just easierto schedule that For people who
are like, Oh, God, please not inAugust, like, you know, and it,
(20:44):
of course, that didn't occur tome because that is not one of my
rhythms.
That's not a thing that I amaware of.
But I'm like, it totally makessense.
And there's no reason that wecan't just actually take into
account what's going on inpeople's lives and making,
making that more of a companyrhythm.
Just being aware of those thingsmore.
And it made me really wonder.
What else could we do, or whatelse am I not aware of, you
(21:09):
know, in terms of, of how welook at things, like, we have a
very classic, our, our financialyears, the calendar year, we, we
set our goals and do a lot ofour work by quarters, so we have
Q1, Q2, and, and I, I love boxesand organizing things, so that
works great for me in a lot ofways, and also, it's like, well,
(21:30):
wait, but is that, Does do weexpect to get the same level of
productivity out of every singlequarter out of every single
month and every single quarterand like, you know, what are the
things that are going on?
And we often have thisconversation, especially in Q4,
which is this 1 coming intoDecember, where people are
taking more time off.
(21:51):
We know there's the holidays,essentially, our customer base
gets really quiet becauseeverybody else is up.
So, like, for our company, forthe business that we do,
December is a very quiet monthoverall.
Whereas for other businesses,like retail, it's right.
That's the craziest time ofyear.
(22:12):
So I'm like, well, maybe Q4 isjust a different kind of quarter
for us.
Maybe we can use it differentlyin terms of our intention for
the productivity we're going toget out of ourselves as
individuals, but like, likewhat, how do we best make use of
that energy?
Whatever that is in Q4.
Like, what does Q1 mean to us?
(22:34):
Like, what does that feel like?
I feel like And I don't know theanswers, but I feel like it's a,
it's an interesting question andit's something that I think is,
worth talking about and figuringout.
Like, are there other thingsthat we could be doing to give
people more flexibility?
Like, some companies, you know,would have a, a, a Friday's off
during the summer, for instance.
(22:55):
Um, and I mean, we already havea four day work week, but, you
know, does it, are there ways toshift around our expectation of
what works getting done duringthe summer?
For, and maybe not as a company,maybe just for individual people
and giving individuals theflexibility to be like, you know
what, in December, I'm liketoasted, so I'm just not going
(23:18):
to work as much in December, butI don't have kids and I have a
lot more energy in June so likeI'll work more in June and then
you know Blake can like chill itout and like deal with the fact
that his you know Girl isgetting out of school like, you
know, like are there ways towork with the flow a little
(23:39):
better
Blake (23:40):
Right.
Addi (23:42):
in terms of our expectations
Blake (23:45):
I think the, an important first step in that is even
acknowledging that it's a thing.
'cause I feel like for a lot offolks at companies like that
would be taboo to even talkabout.
The fact that like you're moreproductive at certain times than
others, which seems obvious andtrue for probably everybody, but
it's not something that getsbrought up very often.
(24:07):
So I think I think sort of, youknow, the classic like
recognizing you have a problemis the first step in fixing it.
Even thinking about that andhaving the conversation, I think
is the first step.
And I do think that, thedifferent quarters have
different rhythms, for ourbusiness and probably a lot of
other businesses also.
But the nice thing about thequarters is it's a large enough
(24:29):
chunk of time that some of thatmessiness can kind of smooth out
a little bit.
Like, we're talking about athree month chunk, so December
does tend to be kind of quietand reflective, but then,
October and November are alittle more, frenetic and
frantic to sort of get, get yourthings done for the year so that
(24:52):
December can be quiet, can be alittle quieter and, and more
reflective.
I think it's nice to sort ofhave that.
The smaller cycles within alarger cycle to kind of help
manage those ups and downs alittle bit.
Addi (25:07):
Yeah, it would be just, I think, an interesting experiment
for people generally to sort oftrack more of what is my week
feel like?
What is my, this month feellike?
What is this quarter?
Like, what are those rhythms forme?
Like, you know, and like, andpeople also just have personal.
(25:28):
Rhythms as well, right?
I mean a million reasons But youknow, there's a lot of physical
things that go on thatcompletely affect productivity
and mental health and thingslike that That are rhythmic.
So I mean people with a uterusknow this so It'd just be an
interesting experiment to sortof really figure out, like, what
(25:49):
is, what is my personal rhythm?
And then, sort of, how does thatline up with other people's
rhythms within any, you know, acompany, or a family, or a, you
know, organization?
And then, how can you supporteach other with those rhythms
instead of trying to, like, jameverybody into the same box, you
(26:09):
know?
Blake (26:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
Addi (26:11):
cool.
A cool experiment to try.
So maybe that's the next oneafter the four day work week.
Mm
Blake (26:19):
me a little bit of this past weekend I was going through
and looking through my oldbullet journals from the last
five or six years.
And, just before.
Probably about a year before theCOVID 19 pandemic started, I,
saw somewhere online, someonewho had a mood tracker where
they just, set up a little keywith different colors for the
(26:41):
different emotions.
And then in the morning andevening, they would just color
in a little box with how theyfelt that morning or that
evening.
And I managed to keep that upfor three years and going back
and looking at it, I candefinitely pick out some
rhythms.
In the colors comparing yearover year, and it was
interesting to sort of thinkabout that and then flip through
(27:04):
and figure out like what wascausing all of the stress that
seems to happen in August andYou know, it turns out that it's
like the end of summer, back toschool, hurry up and get all the
things done before schoolstarts.
And that's pretty consistently,there will be a week in August
where I feel like the world ison fire.
(27:25):
every year apparently.
And I don't know that I, I mean,I, I definitely feel that and
can remember it, but I wouldn'thave been prompted to think
about it without having areminder like that in front of
me.
So I, I, I get a little bitskeptical of some of the
personal measurement stuff, justbecause it, it starts to travel
(27:45):
down the, the productivity guruand like,
Addi (27:48):
Exactly.
Mm
Blake (27:49):
why am I, why am I measuring this or why am I
trying to do this?
But, that the mood tracker thingin particular felt fuzzy enough
that, I'm thinking about goingback to tracking that again,
starting next year, because itwas pretty interesting to look
back on and I'm not.
I'm not great at doing the wholediary type journaling, so that
(28:11):
was sort of a low enough bar toentry that still gave me some
interesting information.
But I, I do think more, I dothink more people's lives are
cyclical than, than probablyappreciate.
Addi (28:26):
Yeah., one of the effects of the Industrial Revolution is
that we got extremelydisconnected from nature,
natural rhythms, generally, andalso personal natural rhythms.
Because that didn't that doesn'tfit the machine.
So we have to let's ignore thatand fit yourself into a machine
(28:50):
and Yeah, so it's justinteresting to be like, oh Yeah,
that's like really a thing likewe're still humans and it's
still a thing that affects usevery day Maybe we should think
about that
Blake (29:05):
And there are side effects to ignoring it, I think
Addi (29:08):
Yes, very much.
Blake (29:10):
And, you know, that's a whole different conversation,
but, I think trying to just.
Optimize and squish yourself ina box that, I don't want to
blame Henry Ford for it, but,trying to fit yourself into a
productivity box and ignoringall of the other complexities of
life, can be dangerous in itsown way.
Addi (29:33):
We should probably wrap this up.
It's a good conversation though.
I certainly don't want it to endnecessarily this podcast Lots of
food for thought.
Thank you for thank you fortalking it out with me a little
bit and we can continue to talkabout it.
Sweet.
All
Blake (29:52):
Absolutely.
Thanks.
Addi (29:55):
Hey, so thanks for listening and let us know if you
have questions, comments, orsuggestions for what you'd like
to hear more about.
You can find all of the variousways to reach us on our website
at osiolabs.com.
That's O S I O L A B S.com.
(30:15):
Also, please make sure tosubscribe to the podcast on your
podcast provider of choice.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
Hey everybody.
(00:00):
This is Addison Barry, andyou're listening to the Osio
Labs podcast.
The show that explores thequestion,"how can we create
sustainable businesses that carefor people and make the world a
better place?" On today'sepisode, I'm joined by Blake
Hall.
This is episode number 10, aboutthe rhythms and schedules of
work.
(00:21):
Everyone is familiar with the 40hour work week and even the
latest chatter about four daywork weeks.
Blake and I are going to diginto where the work we came from
and what that means for realpeople trying to live lives that
don't always line up with thenine to five grind.
We take a look at some of thenatural and personal rhythms in
our lives and how that affectsour work.
(00:41):
I guess a good place to startoff is just some context for why
I even wanted to do this podcastbecause originally it was
Because I want to talk about thefour day work week and just sort
of flexible schedules at work.
And then I was thinking moreabout, even outside of the work
week, like what are the rhythmsand schedules and things that
(01:05):
affect us like throughout ourlives, throughout the year, and
I was particularly struck by itbecause it's the middle of
winter, like we're approachingthe solstice, the winter
solstice here in a little bit.
It's quite dark here in Denmarkand it affects me.
It changes my, my energy.
And so i've been thinking aboutwell, how does what does that
mean for work?
Like how am I showing up forwork in these circumstances?
(01:28):
And you and I had been talkingabout this a little bit and I
think it's a The four day workweek is huge.
Everybody's talking about it.
It's All the rage, since Covidin particular, but I wanted to
also just sort of expand andtalk beyond the 4 day work week.
Because while I think that's agreat conversation.
I don't I think it's stillextremely limited in terms of
(01:51):
what we're even talking about.
Why are we talking about?
The amount of time that we're atwork in particular.
So I think to start off with, Ijust wanted to do a very quick
summary of how we got to the 40hour work week.
That is the standard in mostplaces today.
A lot of that started back inthe 1800s.
(02:14):
And that's because people wereworking more like 80 to 100
hours a week.
They were working nonstop andthat was part of the industrial
revolution.
Before that, people workedbecause they needed to, when
they needed to.
Uh, especially
Blake (02:26):
was a lot more cyclical.
Addi (02:28):
right.
Like if you're looking atsomething like farming, in the
summertime, there's moredaylight, things are growing.
You know, when harvest happens,harvest has to happen.
So you work long days and youget it done, but then in the
winter, everything sort of comesdown and the whole rhythm
changes.
But then with the industrialrevolution in the 1800s, we had
machines that changed everythingand you know, people wanted to
(02:49):
squeeze that productivity.
And it was really interestingthat, so our current 40 hour
work week that we have now.
was legally instituted in theUnited States in 1940.
So that's 80 some years ago.
And that didn't actually get,established in Canada until the
1960s.
So it's quite a bit later.
(03:10):
And then the, the article I wasreading was, is actually from a
place in the UK.
And actually, in the UK, in1998, they now have a law that
it's a 40 hour work week forworkers under the age of 18.
But it's 48 hours if you areover the age of 18.
Blake (03:30):
That blew my mind when I saw that.
Addi (03:33):
yeah.
Blake (03:35):
that was wild.
Addi (03:35):
I was like, what?
What just, wow.
sO that's sort of a sense oflike, you know, the timeline for
where this conversation has comefrom.
And also, I want to point outthat you and I work for an
American company and so ourconversation is based on the
expectations and standards thatwe have in the U.
(03:57):
S.
By and large.
I live in Denmark, and.
I mean, they have the standard40 hour work week here too, but
there are, I don't know, sort ofdifferent expectations around
work environment and things likevacation and stuff here.
So, I just want to put that outthere as context to that.
We are definitely talking aboutthis entire conversation from an
(04:17):
American lens, a Northernhemisphere lens, like, all of
these things.
So, just to establish that.
So.
It's just, it was interestingbecause I, the, in looking at
the timeline to how we got towhere we got, Henry Ford
actually started a lot of this40 hour work week thing because
(04:38):
people would normally workingsix days a week or they were
working eight, you know, 10hours a day or something along
those lines and he actuallydetermined that the Extra
productivity that you got out ofthose extra hours wasn't
actually worth it.
Like it was not significantenough to be worth it.
And so he cut his people to 40hours a week.
And that's, that was like a bigpush in, in the, uh, the overall
(05:01):
parade to get us to where we arenow.
Blake (05:05):
And looking at that from, you know, kind of a current day
situation, it's wild that one ofthe titans of industry is sort
of the one responsible forlimiting the work week in that
way.
I mean, I can't imagine,
Addi (05:19):
Mm hmm.
Blake (05:20):
you know, Jeff Bezos, for example, Deciding on a four day
work week for the folks workingat Amazon Fulfillment Centers.
That just seems, uh, very farfetched,
Addi (05:32):
Yeah.
And I mean, and it'sinteresting, right?
Because it's the sameconversation where you have,
what is productive time?
How, how, what are you squeezingout of a person?
Based on time versuseffectiveness versus, you know,
a million other ways that youcould measure their output or
(05:54):
their value.
And there's this idea of, like,squeezing is absolutely much out
of a person's time as youpossibly can and that there are
diminishing returns.
Like, it's proven over and overagain.
They're just diminishingreturns.
On that, in terms of what isproductive?
I mean, that's a whole otherconversation and I don't want to
(06:15):
go down like the, theproductivity guru, you know,
realm of things, but it'sinteresting that like, you know,
so that was like in the 1920s orsomething.
And he saw a difference between40 hours versus 48 hours.
There was a significant enoughdifference for him to make that
decision.
And people continue to look atthings now and like, you can
(06:37):
look at reports.
It's like in an eight houroffice worker day, how many of
those hours are actuallyproductive?
And it ends up being somewherebetween like two to four hours.
Blake (06:46):
Right,
Addi (06:46):
And so again, it's sort of like, what is productivity?
Like, what is it that we'reactually trying to do here?
Like, what are we trying to getout of this, this magical work
day that needs to happen?
And this can change fordifferent businesses, of course,
too, right?
Like productivity for ourcompany is very different than
productivity in, a factory forinstance, or even in.
(07:09):
Knowledge work, there are a lotof places out there that have
billable hours.
And so that, that changes theequation we're talking about a
bit.
I find it fascinating that we dobillable hours, that we charge a
third party a dollar amount foran hour of time, pretty much
(07:35):
regardless of what actuallyhappens during that hour of
time.
Blake (07:38):
Yeah, the whole, the whole concept of time is money
is sort of a fascinating thingto try to dig into.
Because when you start lookingat it, it's like, time is money,
ooh, and, and what does thatserve, right?
You sort of have Your averageworker who's selling their labor
(07:58):
in exchange for a wage tosurvive.
And then you have a businessowner trying to eat as much
productivity out of those hoursthey're paying for, so they can
make as much money as possibleand the business can succeed.
So depending on which lensyou're looking at it from the,
the time is money conversationcan, can be different.
(08:22):
And the metaphor for that cansort of be.
Kind of a, a tool to exploitpeople, or it can be, you know,
a way to secure your future, orit can be something hanging over
your head that makes you anxiousand nervous.
There's all sorts of feelingsand kind of thoughts that come
(08:43):
up with the whole time is moneything.
And I think.
A lot of folks, especially insort of American tech culture in
particular, don't really stopand think about like where that
expression came from or what theramifications of saying
something like time is moneyactually are in terms of
impacting the human beings thatmake up a business.
Addi (09:07):
Yeah.
And I mean, it's a whole otherroad of conversation is of
course, just like capitalismand, the using up of a resource.
And so time as a resource thatneeds to be, or can be
exploited, can be used and canbe exchanged for money to make
money for those in power, I knowyou had mentioned, the saving
(09:31):
time book.
And so we're not going to havelike a book chat about that.
But one of the things I foundinteresting was talking about
the history of clocks and thetracking of time.
And that also very much lines upwith the industrial revolution
and being able to coordinatethings on time and having these
schedules that are imposedimposed schedules.
(09:53):
Thank you.
Um, instead of say, naturalrhythms and schedules that are
happening, right?
Like, our day is 24 hours long.
Yes.
In Denmark, right now, my actualdaylight hours is about 7 hours.
Whereas, when we get to summer,it's more like 18.
(10:14):
It's a significant difference inwhat an actual day feels like
versus being sliced into 24pieces.
Blake (10:22):
Right,
Addi (10:23):
And so it just, that, that whole industrial revolution,
obviously, it changed a lot ofthings and technology massively,
you know, it was a massiveupheaval in society and culture,
but I think we, we don'trecognize how much things that
happened 200 years ago are stillthe rails that we're riding on
(10:46):
now, even though our technologyhas changed and pushed beyond
that.
Blake (10:50):
Right.
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, one of my favoritequotes from that book, comes
kind of towards the end, but, Ithink she's quoting someone
else, but she says that insteadof thinking about time as money,
we should, we should say time Isbeans.
And, what she means by that isyou can go to the store and buy
a bag of beans and make them toeat, or you can use them as
(11:13):
seeds to grow more beans andhave that be sustainable.
And you can, you know, hand themout to other people so that they
can then make their own beans.
So instead of thinking, thinkingof time as sort of this zero sum
resource we can also think oftime as something that.
You can treat sustainably and,share it with people and, make
(11:37):
more of it.
I mean, I think, you know, astime goes by that, like the time
has different qualities, right?
Like you're talking about thedaylight hours in Denmark, but
you can also have
Addi (11:48):
Yeah.
Blake (11:49):
that you're wasting by doom scrolling on your phone or
time that you're really engagedin a book.
And the quality of that time isreally different, despite the
fact that.
They both might just be an houraccording to the clock.
And I think that, that sort ofmushiness to how we experience
(12:09):
time is, is really interestingjust in our, in, you know,
personal lives, let alone whenit comes to the workplace,
because I think the workplacereally has the same mushy
quality of time, like you'resaying a normal eight hour
workday has two to three hoursof productivity.
That's, that's pretty mushy.
There's not, it's certainly noteight hours of uninterrupted
(12:31):
productivity for.
For knowledge workers, folksoutside of a factory anyway.
But at the same time, a lot ofknowledge workers, especially if
they have to think aboutbillable hours are working
class, their, their income isdirectly tied to their
productivity, their output, thesame way that the factory
(12:53):
workers are.
And I think it's interestingthat.
That doesn't always getacknowledged, by folks that are
doing that kind of work.
So, yeah, the more you sit downand think about time and the
context and how we perceive it,and all those sorts of things,
the, the deeper the rabbit holegets, I guess.
Addi (13:13):
Totally.
And you know, speaking of mushytime, it reminds me, so, because
we've had a four day work weeknow for two years, I guess.
But when we first did it, likeI, I first introduced it and was
like, what do you all think?
And everybody's like, well,yeah, of course I want to work
less.
But.
(13:34):
I mean, like, is that gonna worklike, you know, so we agreed to
have a trial period and then wewere like, okay, well, what we
want to do is measure somethingso we can see if it's working
and it was like, what are wegoing to measure?
Like, it was, it was such amushy.
Exercise, because it was alllike, how do you feel about your
(13:58):
time?
How do you measure productivityin a non billable hours
scenario?
Like it was just such a, gray,fuzzy, I don't know, but it
feels good, so we're gonna doit, kind of
Blake (14:11):
and, and in retrospect, like even, even feeling like we
had to do that to justify it
Addi (14:17):
Totally.
Blake (14:18):
somebody is sort of an interesting situation as well.
Like, When you're talking aboutsomething like employee
happiness, it's a, it's hard tomeasure because you're talking
about, you know, feelings and,and attitudes and that sort of
thing, but also as a business,like we don't really need
permission from anybody to dosomething like that.
(14:40):
We can just do it.
We certainly don't need toprovide some sort of objective
metric that says less work isbetter.
It's just kind of
Addi (14:50):
Mm hmm.
Blake (14:51):
a choice you can make.
Addi (14:52):
Yeah.
What?
Blake (14:54):
I think, I mean, like you were saying, the Industrial
Revolution's 200 years old atthis point.
And if, if the main benefits ofthat, as folks, you know, write
that history in a thousandyears, if the main benefits of
that are a small segment of thepopulation made a whole lot of
money, and that's, and that'sthe size of the contribution the
(15:16):
Industrial Revolution made, thatwould be terrible.
And I think looking at theemergence of AI now, it's sort
of the same kind of story.
Like, are we going to use Theseefficiency improvements and the
technology that we're developingto actually improve humans
lives, or are we just going toturn out more crap faster?
(15:39):
And I think that's a, that's apretty existential question that
it seems like a lot of folks arewrestling with and probably
answering differently than
Addi (15:49):
Mm hmm.
Mm hmm.
Blake (15:50):
the industrialists did 150 years ago.
Addi (15:54):
Yeah,
Blake (15:55):
At least I hope that's the case, because looking,
looking back, it doesn't seemlike that turned out real great
for the environment, especially.
Addi (16:05):
so one thing I wanted to explore with you on this call.
So we have a four day workweek.
That's great.
And to clarify for, for peoplewho are listening, our four day
workweek is a 32 hour workweek.
It's four eight hour days.
It's not a compressed schedule,but we still have the idea that
(16:25):
you got to show up every weekfor your 4 days.
Like, you know, it's a, and itjust sort of marches and
exorbitantly on throughout theyear.
And of course, there's vacationsand, and other, you know,
holidays and time off.
But it's just super interestingto look.
I'm curious if having.
(16:48):
Investigated the 4 day work weekand how that affects people's
lives and what we're able to do.
And I mean, and we also have,like, a, a flexible day.
So, like.
Each person determines theirworking hours, and as long as
they communicate those, we don'tsay you have to be available
from this time to that time eachday.
(17:10):
You get to decide when you'redoing your hours.
You need to go, you know, pickyour kid up at school, then, you
know, that's your break in theday, and that's up to you.
But how about larger rhythms andschedules that we were talking
about earlier with, like, thefarming or day length and things
like that?
Because Seasons change things,not just in day length, or
(17:38):
mental health, but like for, forinstance for you, I know that
you've got, like your year, whenyou break down a year, that
looks pretty different to myyear.
Blake (17:50):
Absolutely.
Yeah, I, the biggest differencefor me is the school year.
As a parent, I have a lot more,child care situations to worry
about in the summer, justbecause we don't have a large
block of uninterrupted timewhere my daughter's accounted
for, and kept busy by otherfolks.
(18:12):
So.
Summers for me tend to be quitea bit more chaotic on that
front, just in terms of havinglarge, regular blocks of
uninterrupted work time.
I can still find those, but Ican't always necessarily say,
you know, it'll be three days aweek.
(18:33):
You know, some weeks it might beI get two of those and other
weeks there might be zero andother weeks there might be five.
It just depends on on what'sgoing on at the time.
So I certainly look forward tofall as sort of Time to buckle
down and get more productive anddo more kind of deep thinking
types of stuff just because Iknow for sure I can protect that
(18:55):
time in an easier way.
Not that I can't do that duringthe summer, but it requires more
work.
So that's a that's the biggestone by far.
And also, like you're you'resaying in Denmark, we're not
that far north and Green Bay,but we're, you know, reasonably
far north as well.
So The days do get quite a bitshorter and I do find my energy
(19:17):
level dwindling a bit this timeof year with holiday stress and,
and the extra darkness and thosesorts of things so I have to
make more of an effort to.
Eat a little bit healthier and,and exercise a little bit more
just to sort of keep my, mybaseline where it needs to be.
Otherwise things do get slow andfoggy and kind of messy this
(19:41):
time of year.
So I, yeah, I certainly feellike the year has a particular
rhythm, but I think if If youdon't have, children in a school
year to work through or workbalance against, I imagine the
year looks completely differentor it's not bound by the same.
Mm-Hmm.
Addi (20:00):
Right.
Everybody's got their own thingsthat are going on.
And I mean, also, like, forinstance, you play golf, and
like, other people playdifferent sports, and at
different times a year, theirsocial and familial obligations
just change, based on seasonalthings that are, that are going
on.
And it was interesting, Talkingabout like summers and kids and
(20:22):
so we have a team of five peoplethree of those people have young
children and We were when wewere doing our retreat and
planning the retreat we ended upchoosing to do it in September
Which was later than I hadoriginally wanted to do it, but
it was because it's just easierto schedule that For people who
are like, Oh, God, please not inAugust, like, you know, and it,
(20:44):
of course, that didn't occur tome because that is not one of my
rhythms.
That's not a thing that I amaware of.
But I'm like, it totally makessense.
And there's no reason that wecan't just actually take into
account what's going on inpeople's lives and making,
making that more of a companyrhythm.
Just being aware of those thingsmore.
And it made me really wonder.
What else could we do, or whatelse am I not aware of, you
(21:09):
know, in terms of, of how welook at things, like, we have a
very classic, our, our financialyears, the calendar year, we, we
set our goals and do a lot ofour work by quarters, so we have
Q1, Q2, and, and I, I love boxesand organizing things, so that
works great for me in a lot ofways, and also, it's like, well,
(21:30):
wait, but is that, Does do weexpect to get the same level of
productivity out of every singlequarter out of every single
month and every single quarterand like, you know, what are the
things that are going on?
And we often have thisconversation, especially in Q4,
which is this 1 coming intoDecember, where people are
taking more time off.
(21:51):
We know there's the holidays,essentially, our customer base
gets really quiet becauseeverybody else is up.
So, like, for our company, forthe business that we do,
December is a very quiet monthoverall.
Whereas for other businesses,like retail, it's right.
That's the craziest time ofyear.
(22:12):
So I'm like, well, maybe Q4 isjust a different kind of quarter
for us.
Maybe we can use it differentlyin terms of our intention for
the productivity we're going toget out of ourselves as
individuals, but like, likewhat, how do we best make use of
that energy?
Whatever that is in Q4.
Like, what does Q1 mean to us?
(22:34):
Like, what does that feel like?
I feel like And I don't know theanswers, but I feel like it's a,
it's an interesting question andit's something that I think is,
worth talking about and figuringout.
Like, are there other thingsthat we could be doing to give
people more flexibility?
Like, some companies, you know,would have a, a, a Friday's off
during the summer, for instance.
(22:55):
Um, and I mean, we already havea four day work week, but, you
know, does it, are there ways toshift around our expectation of
what works getting done duringthe summer?
For, and maybe not as a company,maybe just for individual people
and giving individuals theflexibility to be like, you know
what, in December, I'm liketoasted, so I'm just not going
(23:18):
to work as much in December, butI don't have kids and I have a
lot more energy in June so likeI'll work more in June and then
you know Blake can like chill itout and like deal with the fact
that his you know Girl isgetting out of school like, you
know, like are there ways towork with the flow a little
(23:39):
better
Blake (23:40):
Right.
Addi (23:42):
in terms of our expectations
Blake (23:45):
I think the, an important first step in that is even
acknowledging that it's a thing.
'cause I feel like for a lot offolks at companies like that
would be taboo to even talkabout.
The fact that like you're moreproductive at certain times than
others, which seems obvious andtrue for probably everybody, but
it's not something that getsbrought up very often.
(24:07):
So I think I think sort of, youknow, the classic like
recognizing you have a problemis the first step in fixing it.
Even thinking about that andhaving the conversation, I think
is the first step.
And I do think that, thedifferent quarters have
different rhythms, for ourbusiness and probably a lot of
other businesses also.
But the nice thing about thequarters is it's a large enough
(24:29):
chunk of time that some of thatmessiness can kind of smooth out
a little bit.
Like, we're talking about athree month chunk, so December
does tend to be kind of quietand reflective, but then,
October and November are alittle more, frenetic and
frantic to sort of get, get yourthings done for the year so that
(24:52):
December can be quiet, can be alittle quieter and, and more
reflective.
I think it's nice to sort ofhave that.
The smaller cycles within alarger cycle to kind of help
manage those ups and downs alittle bit.
Addi (25:07):
Yeah, it would be just, I think, an interesting experiment
for people generally to sort oftrack more of what is my week
feel like?
What is my, this month feellike?
What is this quarter?
Like, what are those rhythms forme?
Like, you know, and like, andpeople also just have personal.
(25:28):
Rhythms as well, right?
I mean a million reasons But youknow, there's a lot of physical
things that go on thatcompletely affect productivity
and mental health and thingslike that That are rhythmic.
So I mean people with a uterusknow this so It'd just be an
interesting experiment to sortof really figure out, like, what
(25:49):
is, what is my personal rhythm?
And then, sort of, how does thatline up with other people's
rhythms within any, you know, acompany, or a family, or a, you
know, organization?
And then, how can you supporteach other with those rhythms
instead of trying to, like, jameverybody into the same box, you
(26:09):
know?
Blake (26:09):
Yeah, absolutely.
Addi (26:11):
cool.
A cool experiment to try.
So maybe that's the next oneafter the four day work week.
Mm
Blake (26:19):
me a little bit of this past weekend I was going through
and looking through my oldbullet journals from the last
five or six years.
And, just before.
Probably about a year before theCOVID 19 pandemic started, I,
saw somewhere online, someonewho had a mood tracker where
they just, set up a little keywith different colors for the
(26:41):
different emotions.
And then in the morning andevening, they would just color
in a little box with how theyfelt that morning or that
evening.
And I managed to keep that upfor three years and going back
and looking at it, I candefinitely pick out some
rhythms.
In the colors comparing yearover year, and it was
interesting to sort of thinkabout that and then flip through
(27:04):
and figure out like what wascausing all of the stress that
seems to happen in August andYou know, it turns out that it's
like the end of summer, back toschool, hurry up and get all the
things done before schoolstarts.
And that's pretty consistently,there will be a week in August
where I feel like the world ison fire.
(27:25):
every year apparently.
And I don't know that I, I mean,I, I definitely feel that and
can remember it, but I wouldn'thave been prompted to think
about it without having areminder like that in front of
me.
So I, I, I get a little bitskeptical of some of the
personal measurement stuff, justbecause it, it starts to travel
(27:45):
down the, the productivity guruand like,
Addi (27:48):
Exactly.
Mm
Blake (27:49):
why am I, why am I measuring this or why am I
trying to do this?
But, that the mood tracker thingin particular felt fuzzy enough
that, I'm thinking about goingback to tracking that again,
starting next year, because itwas pretty interesting to look
back on and I'm not.
I'm not great at doing the wholediary type journaling, so that
(28:11):
was sort of a low enough bar toentry that still gave me some
interesting information.
But I, I do think more, I dothink more people's lives are
cyclical than, than probablyappreciate.
Addi (28:26):
Yeah., one of the effects of the Industrial Revolution is
that we got extremelydisconnected from nature,
natural rhythms, generally, andalso personal natural rhythms.
Because that didn't that doesn'tfit the machine.
So we have to let's ignore thatand fit yourself into a machine
(28:50):
and Yeah, so it's justinteresting to be like, oh Yeah,
that's like really a thing likewe're still humans and it's
still a thing that affects usevery day Maybe we should think
about that
Blake (29:05):
And there are side effects to ignoring it, I think
Addi (29:08):
Yes, very much.
Blake (29:10):
And, you know, that's a whole different conversation,
but, I think trying to just.
Optimize and squish yourself ina box that, I don't want to
blame Henry Ford for it, but,trying to fit yourself into a
productivity box and ignoringall of the other complexities of
life, can be dangerous in itsown way.
Addi (29:33):
We should probably wrap this up.
It's a good conversation though.
I certainly don't want it to endnecessarily this podcast Lots of
food for thought.
Thank you for thank you fortalking it out with me a little
bit and we can continue to talkabout it.
Sweet.
All
Blake (29:52):
Absolutely.
Thanks.
Addi (29:55):
Hey, so thanks for listening and let us know if you
have questions, comments, orsuggestions for what you'd like
to hear more about.
You can find all of the variousways to reach us on our website
at osiolabs.com.
That's O S I O L A B S.com.
(30:15):
Also, please make sure tosubscribe to the podcast on your
podcast provider of choice.
We'll catch you on the nextepisode.
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