I want to try out a little experiment: What might happen if I only work 4 hours a day?
Too often I walk home with my brain absolutely fried and no capacity to do much more than eat and sleep. Self-preservation, and nothing else. It sucks. I'm a side project enthusiast; my projects give me energy, develop me, and fuel the work I do at my regular job. But in the current state of business, I'm not able to pursue anything. I have no energy. My social life suffers too.
So I've been thinking: What might happen if I only work from breakfast – lunch, i.e. 4-5 hours a day? Of course, meetings and deadlines might come in the way, but as a general rule of thumb? I'm curious.
In my experience, the more balanced-out my life is, the better every part of my life is. If I have time for me, I have the capacity to have time for others. If I can work on my own things, I have more capacity to work for other people's things. If I feel free and joyful, I turn into the best version of myself. It's that simple, but guilt (in my case) gets in the way:
I'm being paid to sit here from 9-5, has been my understanding of a job until now. But no girl, I now think instead, you're being paid to do quality work, so do what you need to do to provide them with that! 4-hour workdays, it is then, no guilt included.
We need to rethink work. With my decision to move to Denmark and work remotely from there, this has become abundantly clear to me. Flexibility, personal growth, continuous learning, fun and shenanigans all need to be part of our jobs. It will make us thrive and raise the quality of our work and our lives.
My solution for now is working fewer but more focused hours. Let's see what happens. I'll begin starting tomorrow. ✌️
Too often I walk home with my brain absolutely fried and no capacity to do much more than eat and sleep. Self-preservation, and nothing else. It sucks. I'm a side project enthusiast; my projects give me energy, develop me, and fuel the work I do at my regular job. But in the current state of business, I'm not able to pursue anything. I have no energy. My social life suffers too.
So I've been thinking: What might happen if I only work from breakfast – lunch, i.e. 4-5 hours a day? Of course, meetings and deadlines might come in the way, but as a general rule of thumb? I'm curious.
In my experience, the more balanced-out my life is, the better every part of my life is. If I have time for me, I have the capacity to have time for others. If I can work on my own things, I have more capacity to work for other people's things. If I feel free and joyful, I turn into the best version of myself. It's that simple, but guilt (in my case) gets in the way:
I'm being paid to sit here from 9-5, has been my understanding of a job until now. But no girl, I now think instead, you're being paid to do quality work, so do what you need to do to provide them with that! 4-hour workdays, it is then, no guilt included.
We need to rethink work. With my decision to move to Denmark and work remotely from there, this has become abundantly clear to me. Flexibility, personal growth, continuous learning, fun and shenanigans all need to be part of our jobs. It will make us thrive and raise the quality of our work and our lives.
My solution for now is working fewer but more focused hours. Let's see what happens. I'll begin starting tomorrow. ✌️