Today I have a captivating discussion with Joe Sanok about a new time management philosophy. Joe just released a new book in October called Thursday Is The New Friday, which examines a four-day workweek and its benefits. We met when I was a speaker at Podfest and I thought, this guy really understands work-life balance and how to get the most out of your week.
He’s been featured in Forbes, Good magazine, and Smart Passive Income podcast. And Joe also hosts the Practice Of The Practice Podcast.
DO WE NEED A NEW TIME MANAGEMENT SYSTEM?
Brandon Birkmeyer: We get to talk today a little bit about creativity and a little bit of productivity. I’d like to start with this concept that you’ve coined. You’ve written a book about it called Thursday is the new Friday.
I’m going to be honest, it seems like a no-brainer. Let’s all take Friday off. We all want to work less. What is your big idea and why does that matter?
Joe Sanok: I think that is the big idea. It’s me joining a long history and collection of people that have been pushing for the 3-day weekend, for the 4-day workweek.
WHERE THE 40-HOUR WORKWEEK CAME FROM
When we look back and really understand where we get the 40-hour workweek, it’s less than a hundred years old. Henry Ford started it in 1926 to sell more cars. It took off because at that time, people were working 10 to 14 hours a day, 6 or 7 days a week. It was a no-brainer then to move into the 40-hour workweek.
His belief was that if people had a weekend, then they would buy a car. They weren’t going to buy a car to get to work faster, but they would if they had a weekend. He sold a ton of cars as a result of it.
When I think about it, it’s less than a hundred years old, and it was completely made up by this random power broker of the early nineteen hundreds.
WE NEED A NEW TIME MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
For me, why this matters is because if we look at our generation as the post-pandemic generation, we have huge challenges ahead of us. Look at the next 20 to 50 years. We’ve got global warming, future pandemics.
We have all sorts of civil unrest, who knows what else will come our way? Do we think that the 2019 version of humanity was the best that we can do pre-pandemic? Or can we do better?
We have an opening right now for a handful of years to say, “How do we want to reinvent society? How do we help ourselves to be the most creative, the most productive to address these future challenges?”
When I think about why the 4-day workweek, it’s because we need creative people. We need productive people that can really address the challenges that are coming towards their generation.
THE BEST TIME MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Brandon Birkmeyer: What made you start thinking about that? Maybe you were reading the newspapers, which every day have doom and gloom in them. Is this something that started off as something else and it modified over time? How did you get to this idea that this is what we need to be having a conversation about?
Joe Sanok: It’s interesting how when you start to formulate ideas, you try to figure out, is this the next trajectory for myself, or is it more of a return home? For me, this is definitely a return home.
I remember my freshmen orientation. I’m a high school graduate, headed off to college. I go to this freshmen orientation and it’s like a weekend away for the first time ever as a young adult. I’m sitting with this academic advisor in a small group of probably 5 or 6 different people.
She said, “Okay, we’re going to make your schedule for the fall.” I raised my hand right away and I said, “Well, do I have to take classes on Friday?” She said, “No, this is college. Do whatever you want.”
Throughout all of undergraduate and graduate school, I never had a Friday class except for one semester when there was that one mandatory class that I took at 8:00 AM on a Friday. It was something that I lived throughout college.
THE 4-DAY WORKWEEK IMPROVES PRODUCTIVITY
Then when I had my first job, there wasn’t a lot to negotiate on in regards to the financial side. They had a pretty set budget, but I said, “Can I just work a 4-day workweek? I’ve been doing this through all of college. I know that I can do really good work and be really effective.” They gave it to me.
As I moved into my career, like most people, I just started following the 40-hour workweek and eventually over time lost that 4-day workweek.
Then in 2015, when I left my full-time job to do my private practice and to do my consulting full-time, I went back to that 4-day workweek to just test it out as an experiment, and actually got more done. I made more money in working that 4-day workweek than I had in a 5-day workweek.
RELATED: Build your personal brand with the Content Marketing Starter Guide.
THIS TIME MANAGEMENT SYSTEM IS PROVEN TO WORK
Brandon Birkmeyer: That’s interesting. Why do you think people struggle with implementing this practice into their lives?
Joe Sanok: The average person thinks that the more they work, the more they’re going to get done. Unfortunately, the research just doesn’t support that. There’s a diminishing return at a certain point.
There was a recent study in Iceland. They looked at 2,500 working in a 4-day workweek. This was a multi-year study, probably the most famous study to date on the 4-day workweek, and it was across disciplines.
It wasn’t just teachers, it wasn’t just lawn care workers. This was across multiple disciplines and they found that their productivity was higher than the 40-hour workweek.
They were happier, they were healthier. They’re better able to manage their lives. When you look at that, 32 hours is more productive than 40.
That means those last 8 hours were actually just a hobby. They were a waste of time. It was like climbing a hill and then the sand is moving down and instead of getting off of that hill and staying at the top, you just let the sand pull you back down.
Why would we do that if we know that the research is pointing that 32 hours or a 4-day workweek is more effective than a 40-hour workweek? Why would we spend that extra time at work instead of investing in our communities, investing in our children, doing fun things, and having a higher economic return for all of that?
WHERE TO EXPECT THIS NEW TIME MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
Brandon Birkmeyer: I’m going to get a little controversial with you here, but I know you can handle it. On one side, you have a very popular man a lot of you have heard of. Mr. Tim Ferris says we need 4 hours and you’re saying 32. I appreciate that it’s better than 40, but should we be meeting in the middle of 18? Why 32 and not 4?
Joe Sanok: I think that’s a question of how is this different from the 4-hour workweek?
I think Tim did really good work when that book came out in regards to just showing the possibilities. That book was aimed definitely at the individual entrepreneur, the people had almost complete autonomy over themselves. To think that a corporation is going to switch to a 4-hour workweek, that’s not who he was talking to.
THE CORPORATE WORLD WILL BENEFIT
With my book, I would say that this is more for general society. What is the next step in our own evolution? Sure, Henry Ford gave us the 40-hour workweek that was appropriate in 1926. That was a huge step forward for humanity. However, we’ve outgrown that.
We’ve already let go of Fridays. That’s when we have team-building activities at work, when people bring in cupcakes to celebrate a baby, Casual Fridays, et cetera… We see that Friday has been a half workday for a long time.
People already aren’t working those extra 8 hours. It may not be all on Friday, but they’re spending extra time with the water cooler on Wednesday, and then they’re in a meeting that could have been 15 minutes, but it’s an hour and a half.
TIME MANAGEMENT CAN ALWAYS IMPROVE
When you condense that time, we see Parkinson’s Law really live out where the time that we give to something, the work expands to that time.
When we look at the question, should we meet in the middle, I hope that in 50 or 100 years, someone says, “Man, Joseph Sanok and all those 4-day workweek people, that was great for them. But we have outgrown. We are different than that.”
I’m happy if that happens. That’s the step away from the industrialists because the industrialists taught us, “Here’s the one way to do it. Everyone’s a machine, everyone’s part of an assembly line. You do it this way or you’re out. Everything’s prescriptive. It’s five steps. It’s seven steps.”
That’s the old way of thinking. The new way of thinking is evolutionary of saying, what’s the next step for my business? What’s the step for me individually? What’s the step for humanity? We’re going to outgrow it and that’s not bad. It’s not bad if in 5 or 10 years, someone says, “The way Joe thought 5 or 10 years ago is now already outdated.”
Good. We’re evolving. We’re growing, we’re getting better.
CONNECT WITH JOE
MORE ADVICE AND INTERVIEWS
If you’d like more content about how to build your personal brand, check out my free Content Marketing Starter Guide.
And here are some more of my most popular thought leader interviews!
- What Business to Start with John Lee Dumas
- Personal Branding Masterclass with Chris Ducker
- Built to Serve with Evan Carmichael
Don’t want to miss the next thought leader interview? Subscribe to the free B-team Insider Newsletter! And don’t forget to leave a rating and review on iTunes.
Talk soon!