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Could a 4-day Workweek Make You More Productive?

You’ve no doubt heard of the 4-hour workweek, popularized by Tim Ferriss, however most would agree that the concept of reducing your working hours so dramatically is more of a marketing hook than an achievable schedule.

So if you don’t belong to the lucky minority who can fit their week’s work into 4 hours, how about 4 days?

The idea of a reduced workweek with a 3-day weekend is one that seems to be growing in popularity worldwide, and there have been some interesting studies into its effects.

While researching this article I found several examples of companies that have successfully implemented a 4-day work week, and they seem to fall into two camps: those that have lengthened the work day to fit in the same number of hours of work in  fewer days, and those that have reduced weekly working hours overall.

Are 10-hour days the answer?

Web development agency Reusser Design recently discussed in their company blog how they had lengthened the working day to 10 hours by changing their working hours to 6.30am to 5pm, Monday to Thursday and compressing 40 hours of work into just 4 days.

Team members are rotated in on Fridays so that there is always someone available to deal with clients, but otherwise the employees are free to work on their own projects or enjoy leisure time with their families.

A 3-day weekend may sound worth a couple of extra hours at work each day, but personally, I can’t help feeling that restructuring the working schedule in this way has missed the point of the 4-day workweek.

Do Early Risers Get More Done?

Image courtesy of Greg at  http://www.gdpalmer.com/blog/

Study the habits of the world’s most successful people – prolific novelists, political leaders, CEOs of multi-million dollar companies – and you will find one thing in common: Those people who have achieved great success in business and in life tend to be early risers.

It seems that the phrase “the early bird gets the worm” may well be true once you start to study the early morning habits of these successful people. So, is simply getting up a couple of hours early the key to optimal productivity? Do early risers just get more done?

Famous early risers

Tim Cook, CEO of technology company, Apple, begins every day at 4.30am. He starts his day by sending out business emails and then heads to the gym for 5, before being one of the first to arrive at Apple headquarters in the morning.

John Grisham, lawyer and best-selling author began his career by rising every morning at 5am to start writing. He would get up, shower, head straight out to his office and be at his desk with a cup of coffee, ready write for up to two hours before starting his work as a lawyer.

Disney CEO, Robert Iger, gets up every morning at 4.30am and uses the early morning hours for reading the newspaper, exercising, sending emails and listening to music, before getting to the office at 6am.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz is in the office every morning by 6am but still manages time to fit in an early morning workout with his wife before going to work. Perhaps helped along by a cup of his company’s coffee?

Architect, Frank Lloyd Wright did most of his real work between the hours of 4 and 7am. He would start sketching immediately upon waking for several hours and then go back to bed for a morning nap.

Benjamin Franklin, Founding Father of the United States, is commonly credited with the quote, “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” Every morning he would get up and start his day by thinking, “What good shall I do today?”

The benefits of early rising    

The correlation between getting up early and overall achievement seems to be pretty clear so what is it exactly about the early morning hours that allows you to get more done?

• More time.  Rising before the rest of the household or a few hours before you have to be at your day job is a common strategy for people with busy lives. Many famous authors held down 9-5 jobs while writing their debut novels, rising before the sun to get a few hours of work in before they have to leave for the office.
• Fewer distractions. When the rest of the world is sleeping and the house is calm and quiet, productivity is bound to increase. Many early risers find that they can squeeze a lot more work into the morning hours than they can at any other time of the day.
• Increased creativity. Nobody does their best work when they’re tired and starting work soon after waking takes advantage of your brain being at its most alert.
• Faster commute. If you have a daily commute to get to work, getting up earlier means you will beat the traffic and eliminate wasted time sitting in traffic.
• Improved mental attitude. Getting the majority of your day’s work done before most people have even got out of bed feels incredibly satisfying and will give you a huge mental boost for the rest of the day.
• Less stress. Waking early will allow you more time to get ready in the mornings meaning you are not rushing round at the last minute and getting a stressful start to the day.

My Learnings on How to Avoid Procrastination

“Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.” – Wayne Gretzky

Procrastination is the enemy of all creativity. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Hollywood screenwriter, a web designer or – like Mr Gretzky – one of the greatest ice hockey players in history, the lure of Facebook, YouTube or an afternoon lazing in front of the TV when you should be working hard comes to us all, and it can be an absolute killer. You might not even realise you’re procrastinating until your deadline starts to loom large on the horizon, and then its panic stations.

There are lots of ways to combat procrastination, and some are easier than others. It’s too easy to say “don’t go on Facebook” or “use an app to lock you out of social media and certain websites”, there has to be more to it than that, or you can still easily fall back into bad habits.

The internet is a wonderful tool for research, inspiration and fun, but it swallows time like a whale swallows water, especially if you use it for some of these ridiculous means.

Set Yourself Goals

Setting yourself goals is a great way to avoid procrastination, and breaking them into small tasks can give you a great sense of reward every time you complete a task. If the majority of your working day is spent writing, you can split your goals into small tasks such as 1) Research 2) Choosing a topic 3) Outlining each piece of work (including making bullet points for each major point you want to make) and 4) Editing and rewriting. By doing this, you structure your work and give yourself goals to accomplish within your work. It also gives you focus, which is a vital part of avoiding procrastination and keeping on track. If your work starts to go off on a tangent and lose focus, the lure of Facebook or other distractions will become much more attractive.

My personal preference, especially when it comes to writing, is to research a topic, create a title (or headline) that sets up the piece nicely and create sub-headers that set up the rest of the piece. When I have this level of focus, I know exactly where I am and I can plough through the piece and get to the finishing line quickly. It’s also a great deal easier and less stressful to edit a full piece of work than to keep stopping and starting to try and find focus. You run the risk of becoming frustrated and bored – Never a good mood to be in when you’re trying to write something interesting.

The Pomodoro Technique – A Cool Way To Stay Focused And Increase Productivity

Subject of this post is the Pomodoro Technique which I came across about a year ago. Since then it has helped me a lot to stay focused and get more tasks completed (this article being one of the outcomes, took me 3 pomodoros). Why don’t you try it too?  

The concept behind the Pomodoro Technique was developed by Francesco Cirillo during his university days in the 1980's. Faced with a crippling productivity slump after his exams, he began to take a long hard look at his work habits and tried to figure out what was wrong. He came to the conclusion that the real issue was that it’s getting harder to fully focus intensively on a task, even if it is just for a short period of time.

And that's how the Pomodoro Technique was born. Armed with a tomato-shaped timer (“Pomodoro” means tomato in Italian), Cirillo set off to create one of the most simple yet innovative productivity methods that has helped thousands (millions?) of people around the globe manage their time better.

In a Nutshell: The Pomodoro Technique

Here's how it works; first off, you need a timer (any timer will do, though most followers stay true to the concept and get themselves those tomato-shaped kitchen timers), a pen or pencil, and a notebook where you can record your progress.

A Pomodoro consists of 25 minutes of intense concentration on a single task, followed by a 5-minute break. After four Pomodoros have elapsed, you can then take a longer break (a fifteen or thirty minute interval works fine) and then the whole cycle can be repeated again.

A typical Pomodoro cycle looks like this:

1. Tasks to be accomplished for the day are listed down. You can use this To Do Today sheet provided by Pomodoro Technique website. It includes an area for pending tasks and a section labeled "Unplanned and Urgent Activities" where unexpected yet necessary tasks that pop up during the day are filed.
2. The timer is set for 25 minutes and the tasks are worked on one by one. The breaks (both short and long ones) are to be used for activities that are NOT related to work. Once a Pomodoro is used up, a corresponding mark should be written down on your recording sheet or notebook. You can rest, eat, stretch or do any other activity that can help to refresh your mind.
3. At the end of the day, observations regarding your performance need to be recorded. This part usually includes recording the number of Pomodoros that were spent on each task and the number of interruptions (if any). Writing these down will often help you predict the number of Pomodoros to be assigned for future activities.

The whole process is simple enough to comprehend, but there are two key rules to be followed if the system is to be used to its maximum potential.

• Rule Number One: A Pomodoro is Indivisible
  An ongoing Pomodoro cannot be disrupted. If it is to be interrupted by an urgent matter, that particular Pomodoro needs to be crossed out and voided. Upon returning to work, you need to start on a fresh Pomodoro.
• Rule Number Two: If a Pomodoro Begins, It Has to Ring
  Every Pomodoro should be worked on from start to finish. If a task is finished before the timer runs out, you could use this time to review your work and make improvements, if necessary. This process is called "overlearning."