Call of the wild: How a four-day work week has changed my life

I recently dropped down to working four days a week.

No major rupture in my life propelled me; I was just eager to spend more time doing the things I enjoy.

It took me a while to relax, but after I did, I felt life returning.Credit: iStock

And I wanted to act first, before some artificially intelligent bot called Terrance started sending out emails from my work laptop with gifs of the Terminator.

While I think it is lunacy to suggest the possibility that AI will pinch all our jobs, it could lead the charge towards humans working less.

Going to a shorter working week took more adjusting than you might think.

I wasn’t whipping up Bloody Marys at 11 am whistling Dolly Parton’s 9 to 5. Instead I was trying to expunge that narrative in my head: would our family really survive on less money?

After I realised I wouldn’t have to scrape roadkill off the bitumen for dinner I became more composed.

By the eighth week, I found myself giggling at the honeyeaters nibbling on the native flowers.

I chatted to an unsuspecting neighbour who was so stunned by my sudden chirpy disposition he wanted to know if I was recently diagnosed with a terminal disease.

I read. Pulled out old CDs. Wrote. And had endless, blissful moments of just sitting out the front in silence. It was my own personal health spa. Working less was truly transformative.

I had fewer urges to drop my kids off at Kings Park and drive away.

The idea of not wanting to rock up to work five days isn’t some Marxist manifesto aimed at overthrowing the capitalistic system so we can all get an equal serving of cabbage soup while singing Woody Guthrie songs.

And I was more focused and fulfilled at work.

I’m not the only one who has discovered the joys of disconnecting for that one simple day.

There are organisations around the globe experimenting with various four-day working week models, all with a close eye on the bottom line.

In Australia, a Parliamentary Senate committee inquiry has recommended a national trial. Public servants in Canberra have been seen gleefully hurling themselves into Lake Burley Griffin.

Recently, the Australian Services Union was the first union to get a four-day week in an enterprise bargaining agreement.

There is even a movement called 4-Day Week Global which has a strong following in Australia.

A few different models are being tested, the most popular being the “100:80:100” model. Workers churn out the same productivity over four days but get paid for a full working week. As long as employees keep producing the goods everyone is tickety-boo.

Some miserable experts claim this could lead to stress, burnout, disconnect, scheduling conflicts (OMG, no!) and workers going to the pub for a counter meal on a Thursday instead of a Friday.

There are even some outlandish suggestions by economists that humans would become more slovenly and less motivated after bingeing eight hours of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on their days off.

If anything, I think this will help businesses identify which workers are tragically inept.

The results from the trials have been obscenely positive.

Researchers from Boston College, Cambridge University and the University College surveyed 900 employees in the United States and Ireland who shifted to a four-day week.

The research uncovered “profound” findings with 97 per cent of the employees indicating they wanted to continue working.

A small chunk surveyed said no amount of coin could convince them to go back to five days.

And here’s the kicker: revenue rose approximately eight per cent over the trial and was up 37.55 per cent compared to the same period in 2021. Hiring rose, absenteeism was reduced, and resignations declined slightly.

And worker satisfaction was higher.

But renowned economist and British historian Robert Skidelsky has been trying to tell us for more than a decade that we were working too hard and for too long.

Most of us continue to ignore his advice with irreversible, dire consequences.

In Skidelsky’s provocative book How Much is Enough he argues most humans in wealthy countries are not living their best lives because they spend most of their week doing some pretty uninspiring jobs.

“People are generally happier when spending time on what they want to do, rather than on what they have to do to earn an income,” he wrote.

“It is ethically desirable to reduce the number of hours a person has to work.”

While I’d posit that any quest for happiness will ultimately leave us unsatisfied, you’d have to be a moron to not want to become a better human by working less.

The idea of not wanting to rock up to work five days isn’t some Marxist manifesto aimed at overthrowing the capitalistic system so we can all get an equal serving of cabbage soup while singing Woody Guthrie songs.

It comes back to Skidelsky’s point about nourishing our well-being. What is wrong with choosing contentment over our insatiable thirst for extra coin?

Our desire for more and more money is making us miserable. We don’t need that fridge that informs us we’re running low on anti-ageing cream and kale.

The four-day working week will become a reality because humans are realising the ceaseless pursuit for “more things” is slowly killing them.

And in the process, we all might improve our well-being, not just me.

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