Friday, July 31, 2015
Why the Eight-Hour Workday is an outdated concept
How productive do you believe you are in your eight-hour workday? There may be a few ways to define the answer:
Semi-productive: you’re halfway there but you still slack occasionally.
Mediocre: you don’t really try, but somehow you get things done.
Or,
Top-level: you like to keep yourself super busy.
Well, no matter which one you most identify with, the truth is that you could probably be doing better.
Eight hours a day at an office desk is not the definition of productivity. You can thank the British Industrial Revolution for it. They worked out that this allotted time would yield higher outputs within a fixed schedule for factory workers. This may have worked in the 1800s, but today it has become an outdated logic which needs to be reworked.
Podio has broken it down in this infographic. They explain how squeezing as many hours as possible into one workday to be “productive” can be counterintuitive. In the end, everything depends less on time and more on your focus, motivation, and overall well-being — all of which link directly to your energy levels.
“My goal is no longer to get more done, but rather to have less to do.” — Francine Jay
Cheers
Calvin