In the age of the unprecedented worldwide pandemic, we were forced to rethink all the things we took for granted. Our values and our priorities, our leisure time, and most importantly, the way we work.
No wonder that the classic 8-hour workday MO, which was once a socialist dream, today seems redundant, to say the least. With more and more people switching to remote work, people are now realizing the 8-hour may have been a counterproductive lie.
So the TikToker AutisticCommProf, @ndcommlion, has recently made an illuminating video explaining how the “8 hours for work, 8 hours for rest, 8 hours for what you will” slogan from the late 1800s labor movement is a false promise.
When put into our everyday practice, it destroys our work-life balance, leaving us exhausted and unproductive. Let’s see her whole point right below, and share what you think in the comment section!
This woman has recently shared an illuminating TikTok video on why the standard 8-hour work/sleep/play model is outdated and no longer works in our modern society
Image credits: ndcommlion
In a video, she referred to this tweet from the Twitter user Jarrel, confirming that this in fact is very true
Image credits: slimrel__
@ndcommlion#greenscreen #capitalismsucks #capitalism #worklife #worklifebalance #fightfor15 #eattherich #generalstrikeoct15 #generalstrike♬ original sound – AutisticCommProf
Image credits: ndcommlion
The 8-hour-long workday is one of the enduring legacies of the First Industrial Revolution. With the advent of manufacturing firms and industries that required hard labor, productivity was usually measured in linear terms. The workers worked for 8 hours a day producing the units of output that got calculated.
This was also a much better solution than the standard 12- or 14-hour days factory workers, including children, had worked before. Over the next 100 years, labor unions of various industries in the US adopted the eight-hour standard. Moreover, Henry Ford brought the idea further into the mainstream in 1926 by mandating a five-day, 40-hour workweek in his company’s factories. In 1940, Congress officially set the American workweek at 40 hours. The same work week we have today, in 2021.
Image credits: ndcommlion
No wonder the 8-hour workday received a huge backlash during the pandemic, which, over the past year, has forced millions of office workers to set up shop from home. The call for shorter hours followed with people pointing to the fact that the 8-hour-long workday is not only unproductive, but it destroys work-life balance and sucks up all the remaining energy meant for leisure activities and resting.
A growing body of research indicates that five hours is about the maximum that most of us can concentrate hard on something. The productivity consultant Alex Pang believes that “there are periods when you can push past that, but the reality is that most of us have about that [amount of] good work time in us every day.”
It turns out, the current 8-8-8 structure comes from the labor movement in the early 19th ct. which aimed at improving work and life balance at the time
Image credits: Wikimedia.Common
Bored Panda reached out to David Andrew Wiebe, a best-selling author, entrepreneur and musician who shared some very interesting insights on the 8-hour workday standard and why it is redundant. “Apparently it has its origins in 16th-century Spain, but like most things that have become routine or habit, the eight-hour workday has been perpetuated through the education system. And, the modern education system was mostly formed around producing factory workers,” David said.
“On average, workers are only productive for about three hours a day,” he said and added that “There may be reasons for this beyond obvious human limitations, such as unnecessary distractions in the workplace, but studies also show top-performing executives and entrepreneurs didn’t fare much better (they may be able to squeeze another 25 to 30 minutes of productive time out of their day!).”
The new model seemed like a much better structure than the 12- or 14-hour days factory workers, including children, were expected to put in at the time
Image credits: jonesfamilyhistory
Moreover, “The idea that ‘sitting is the new smoking’ is also prevalent, suggesting that staying sedentary for long hours diminishes our willpower, energy, and ability to focus. Again, those who have standing desks don’t fare much better, because they still aren’t getting the movement their body needs. If you have a physical labor job, that’s a different story.”
David also pointed out that obesity is a growing problem, and it has a lot more to do with food consumption, which can be connected to stress levels. “When we’re tired, exhausted, or even frustrated, we tend to reach for unhealthy food,” he said and added that higher levels of performance are possible, but sitting at a desk for longer hours is not the answer. “Breaking up the day with exercise and meditation can help in creating second winds,” David explained.
Image credits: politicstheoryphotography
Many have adapted to working from home and have discovered new routines for themselves. “For some, this has proved a blessing. For others, not so much,” he said and added that “the pandemic has fundamentally shifted the way we think about a lot of things. It’s only natural that we’d begin to re-examine areas of our lives that weren’t working before.”
Because of that, choice holds more significance than ever, David argues. “We can choose eight-hour workdays. We can choose four-hour workdays, And if we want, we can choose 12-hour workdays,” he explained and added that although part of this choice should be informed by performance, another important factor is what you want out of life. “And depending on aspirations or ambitions, we might choose to create something outside of our day jobs, requiring more of our time and energy,” David concluded.
And people had a lot of thoughts to share in response to the 9-5 workday debate
And there have been studies proving that people work more efficiently with shorter days + less days per week!
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That's because you don't know how to do your job in an efficient manner. I could do my job in 5 hours from home instead of the 11-hour workday I get including commute and wasted time at the office.
@Elmie Pumpkinbush Are you sure? My mother used to do major bookkeeping at a huge livestock barn. No one could leave until the sale had ended and the books were done. My mother (in her fifites) would leave Friday morning and sometimes not arrive home until Saturday. A few weeks ago I went home to see her and now they are trying to upgrade their system, she got home at one a.m. How efficient do you think bookkeeping is after the person's been up for more than 24 hours?
It’s not that your overall productivity goes down, it’s that your marginal productivity goes down. A dumb example would be; your first hour picking apples you can pick 100, but your 10th hour picking apples you only pick 20. So of course you pick more apples if you work that 10th hour, but it would be more efficient to swap you out for another person by that point.
Dylan, this is the perfect analogy!
Not to mention the amount of time and money saved from a smaller amount of errors. Tired and stressed people make mistakes, sometimes very expensive mistakes, sometime mistakes that will then result in other people above you needing to get involved and using their more costly time to fix that mistake. For instance, I have had my employees make mistakes that got escalated into days worth of work for me and I make about 3 times that of my lowest paid employee. So cost a lot when a supervisor has to come back around and fix things done wrong and also makes us look less dependable. Company loses their reputation and you are paying someone way more clean up mistakes. More efficient and higher quality work.
Clear to you based on what? It's so nice that you don't experience burnout or tunnel vision, but I don't think that applies to everyone.
Then you need glasses. Those studies have been peer reviewed and are recognized as facts. You've been proper brainwashed by capitalism.
Shorter days should be a thing or at least a 4 day work week instead of a 5. Everyone is burnt out. Plus, not like you are playing when you get home. You are cooking, cleaning, helping kids with homework, running around town trying to grab this or that, taking this kid to that thing. Best thing about the pandemic was I was working from home for a hot second and man I felt great, felt like I had so much more time and I could do laundry on my lunch break. It was amazing. Plus, no dressing up for the office, no makeup, no hair, just roll out of bed, drink some coffee and log in. Really made it clear to me that my next position will be a remote position.
I think the average single parent, or the typical working mother, puts in more than 8 hours of work at home every day.
That's an important factor. Back in the day when this 8/8/8 argument was put into place, the average household had a "stay at home mother", or other support for raising the kids and keeping the home. Nowadays most households need to have both parents work just to stay on top of the bills. So it is 8 hours work, plus the commute time, and your lunch break etc... 8 hours sleep, and the rest of the time is cooking cleaning, and taking care of the family. Very little time for "what we will"
For a lot of people with kids, the hours of work, commuting, housework, childcare, and so on, take more than 16 hours a day, and they make up the difference in lost sleep.
Yeah, but you know what, they chose that life.
And there have been studies proving that people work more efficiently with shorter days + less days per week!
This comment is hidden. Click here to view.
This comment has been deleted.
That's because you don't know how to do your job in an efficient manner. I could do my job in 5 hours from home instead of the 11-hour workday I get including commute and wasted time at the office.
@Elmie Pumpkinbush Are you sure? My mother used to do major bookkeeping at a huge livestock barn. No one could leave until the sale had ended and the books were done. My mother (in her fifites) would leave Friday morning and sometimes not arrive home until Saturday. A few weeks ago I went home to see her and now they are trying to upgrade their system, she got home at one a.m. How efficient do you think bookkeeping is after the person's been up for more than 24 hours?
It’s not that your overall productivity goes down, it’s that your marginal productivity goes down. A dumb example would be; your first hour picking apples you can pick 100, but your 10th hour picking apples you only pick 20. So of course you pick more apples if you work that 10th hour, but it would be more efficient to swap you out for another person by that point.
Dylan, this is the perfect analogy!
Not to mention the amount of time and money saved from a smaller amount of errors. Tired and stressed people make mistakes, sometimes very expensive mistakes, sometime mistakes that will then result in other people above you needing to get involved and using their more costly time to fix that mistake. For instance, I have had my employees make mistakes that got escalated into days worth of work for me and I make about 3 times that of my lowest paid employee. So cost a lot when a supervisor has to come back around and fix things done wrong and also makes us look less dependable. Company loses their reputation and you are paying someone way more clean up mistakes. More efficient and higher quality work.
Clear to you based on what? It's so nice that you don't experience burnout or tunnel vision, but I don't think that applies to everyone.
Then you need glasses. Those studies have been peer reviewed and are recognized as facts. You've been proper brainwashed by capitalism.
Shorter days should be a thing or at least a 4 day work week instead of a 5. Everyone is burnt out. Plus, not like you are playing when you get home. You are cooking, cleaning, helping kids with homework, running around town trying to grab this or that, taking this kid to that thing. Best thing about the pandemic was I was working from home for a hot second and man I felt great, felt like I had so much more time and I could do laundry on my lunch break. It was amazing. Plus, no dressing up for the office, no makeup, no hair, just roll out of bed, drink some coffee and log in. Really made it clear to me that my next position will be a remote position.
I think the average single parent, or the typical working mother, puts in more than 8 hours of work at home every day.
That's an important factor. Back in the day when this 8/8/8 argument was put into place, the average household had a "stay at home mother", or other support for raising the kids and keeping the home. Nowadays most households need to have both parents work just to stay on top of the bills. So it is 8 hours work, plus the commute time, and your lunch break etc... 8 hours sleep, and the rest of the time is cooking cleaning, and taking care of the family. Very little time for "what we will"
For a lot of people with kids, the hours of work, commuting, housework, childcare, and so on, take more than 16 hours a day, and they make up the difference in lost sleep.
Yeah, but you know what, they chose that life.