Why I Work 4 Hours in My 8 Hour Workday

 

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The 8 hour workday came about as part of the Industrial Revolution. Prior to the movement to work 8 hours, it was common for people to work 10, 12 or even 16 hours a day. The workweek itself was 6 days long, so working 60 to 80 hours per week was a common practice. Beginning as early as the 16 hundreds, but really gaining steam in the 18 hundreds, the 8 hour workday became more and more popular. The United States Federal government passed an 8 hour workday for all federal workers in the 1860's and after that many labor organizations in the United States began to demand and win 8 hour workdays as well.

Is the 8 hour workday the right amount? The movement from 10 hours to 8 hours was not really based on scientific study or evidence of what was the most productive, but rather a desire to have more work life balance than before. Now there are many studies about how effectively people can work and for how long. So based on these studies is an eight hour workday the right amount of hours or is it something different? 

A study done by Psych Net shows that 8 hours may not be the right amount of hours. In fact, it may be better to work half those hours with long breaks in between. You may still be "working" an 8 hour workday, but you'll be spreading out your hardest work over 2 to 3 periods. In fact we may be able to apply some of the concepts of the exercise and fitness world into the way we work and both improve our work life balance, personal development and ultimately our productivity.

High Intensity Interval Training

You may have heard of the concept of high intensity interval training. This is an exercise regimen where the person exercising will work extremely hard for a short period of time and then slow down and exercise at a more relaxed rate. This allows for maximum productivity for a short period with a prolonged recovery period. The process is repeated several times until the exercise has exhausted the individual. When I ride my bike for exercise in the morning I generally take the same ten mile route every time. During my trip away from home there are two segments on the way out and two segments on the way home that I ride as hard as I can. In fact, I use an app that tracks and measures my performance against others, so I know if I am improving against myself and the top performance of those around me. Prior to and after each of these segments, however, I am spinning at a more relaxed rate. This allows my body to warm up and stay warm without being exhausted. When I arrive at a segment I have the energy and ability to give it my all. 

The same can be found to be true in my workday. I typically spend the beginning of each day catching up on messages. I go through any emails that I wasn't able to get through the day or night before, any support requests that I'm following up on or other non, high impact work to start my day out. After an hour of lighter administrative work, I switch to more intense work. This may be working on a project, report, presentation or writing, but the fact is that I will be highly focused at this time, on the task at hand. I block out all messaging and focus on the work I am attempting to get done. I attempt to stay highly focused for approximately two hours. This brings me to roughly lunch time. At lunch I disengage for the next 30 - 60 minutes depending on my schedule and take time to go for a mid day walk and then eat lunch. After I return from lunch I spend the next hour working on personal development. This may be reading a book, learning new skills online or taking a training course. After this hour, I will return to focus work for the next two hours, blocking out distractions and working intensely. For the last hour of the workday, I will return to more administrative work. Following up on email and instant messages I've received that day that require my attention. Around 5 PM, I begin my virtual commute by undocking my work laptop and docking my personal laptop. 

The Benefits of Reducing Cognitive Load

This process of relaxed work followed by intense work and then back to relaxed work has allowed the brain to get into an intense focused workflow where it can stay highly focused. By only doing this for a short period of time and then moving to more relaxed work, you allow the brain time to cover. Similar to a weight lifter doing an intense set of high weights followed by a recovery period, you allow the brain time to relax and prevent cognitive overload. If you were to go out for a run, but decided to sprint the entire way, you would quickly become exhausted and be forced to walk or even stop completely while you had time to recover. This downtime would ultimately slow down the overall pace of your run. If however, you jogged and occasionally inserted short bursts where you sprinted for 50 meters you would find that you were able to maintain the jogging pace throughout and your overall time increased.

The same thing will happen when you work. When you allow yourself to work in a more relaxed state with short bursts of  high intensity focused work, you allow yourself to become more productive without becoming mentally exhausted. Remember when you were in school and would leave studying for an important exam until the night before? You would spend hours and hours studying intensely for the exam the following day. It would leave you utterly exhausted and at some point you would no longer be able to effectively study. You know intuitively that studying for a short time every day would yield better, more sustainable results.

The shorter periods of work or learning followed by more relaxed workload are directly applicable from that better study habit. By working intensely and then in a more relaxed state you not only allow your brain time to recover from a heavy cognitive load, but you also allow time for your brain to put your thoughts together, more effectively commit ideas to memory and to consider new ways to attack problems.

How I Keep Myself on Task

You've heard the phrase, plan your work and work your plan. Maybe you've heard, plan your work or plan to fail? Either way, it takes intentional action to ensure that I am working in an alternating focused and more relaxed state. Every week I schedule out both focus periods, lunch, breaks, learning time and time to catch up on messages.  Here's a look at what a typical workday might look like for me.

• 8AM - 9AM - Catch up on messages
• 9AM - 10AM - Review escalations and support requests to identify resources or ask for additional support
• 10AM - 12PM - Focus work. Work on specific projects with notifications disabled. 
• 12PM - 1PM - Lunch Break. I typically take a 20 - 30 minute walk followed by a light lunch. 
• 1PM - 2PM - Independent Learning. I may read a book, take a development course or study new skills online.
• 2PM - 4PM - Focus Work part 2.
• 4PM - 5PM - Catch up on messages. I'll use this time to catch up on any messages that need my response that day. Anything that doesn't require an immediate response gets a reminder set for the next morning. 

As you can see my day is pretty full, but if we go back to that 8 hour vs. 4 hour workday we can see that I am doing both an 8 hour and a 4 hour workday. I have 4 hours of highly intense work, and 4 hours of more relaxed non mentally taxing work. I've been working in this way for several years and I've found it to be highly productive and more satisfying. I have worked with other folks that attempt to work at a high pace for the entire day, skipping breaks and lunches. They are able to keep this up for sometime, but there is an accumulation of stress that eventually breaks down their process. They find themselves burning out and their productivity slowing down. They could actually achieve more by working in a more structured, intense then relaxed interval. 

How do you work? Are you going 100% from the beginning to the end of the workday? Do you work relaxed but much more Horus or do you work in a hybrid state like I do? Tell me about it! Post below or contact me!