Should we have a 4 day work week?

4 day work weeks would be a great practice for all states to pick up. Less traffic, pollution, and less stress on the average American.

I wouldn't mind an extra two hours a day so I could sleep in on an extra day off. People get too strung out working 60-100% of the weekdays until retirement anyway.

I disagree, I would rather work 40+ hours and make that $. Got to pay back a mountain of student debt :(

i've been working a 4 day work week for a year now, and even though i'm losing my job i'm extremely sad i'm going to have to find a 'normal' 9-5er.

I think a 4 day work week would be great. i used to work 4 10-hour days when i worked at a restaurant and it was so much better than 5 8-hour days.

americans work way too hard. i vote for full holiday :)

Look at the OP. Trying to turn it into a "green" issue. Shit, if you want "green", I suggest we turn into Africa. That continent's non-production is so green that people are dying. No production and dying population, you can't get greener than that.

yes workers of the united states relax. we work too much, we get paid too little, and we pop too many pills. Its time to shorten the work week. 30-35 hours a week anymore and you get lots of pay.

not only should we shorten the work week, most of europe gets 4-8 weeks of vacation, we should get longer vacations!

I think a more realistic approach would be to allow people to work from home or only come into the office if they have work they need to do IN the office.

Especially us newer/younger employees have noticed that a lot of our "work time" seems to entail sitting around surfing the internet. Not exactly productive but we aren't allowed to leave to go DO something productive.

that would be amazing if they implemented that into the school system!!..but i guess it wont affect me because i go to private school.. : (

the 40hour work week is arbitrary anyway... work the hours you want... just find a job that 'lets' you.

i think some businesses/business models could incorporate this system with a lot of success, but the majority couldn't. i just don't see america saying "eh, we don't need to hustle and grind, we need to chill" --> it just doesn't fit the american mentality of work your ass to the bone and you'll rise to the top. it's not everyone's mentality, but it's been one that we've been able to harness for some time. for those that want a different schedule, there's always europe...

the french work less than us but there efficiency is much better. we should learn from them. its not all about working 50 hours a week, its QUALITY of QUANTITY

Thank goodness the idea of a four-day workweek did not gain traction during the Bush Administration...I think he would have cracked under the stress of an additional day...

One of the large telecom companies in my home state went to 4 "tens" a week last year. A lot of the rest of us in the industry have been interested in their experience. The message so far: The employees love it -- except to the degree that some project on which they are working needs input or approval from some other employee -- and they find that the second employee just started their three day weekend. Most of their vendors and large customers HATE it. They like dealing with a particular individual, and they get frustrated when that individual is not around during normal business hours.

But the most INTENSE lesson they have learned is that their proposal to offer this schedule on a "temporary, experimental" basis was a bit unrealistc. There has already been one near-mutiny when management suggested that they might not continue with the experiment.

I've been working a 4-day work week for about ten years now and can't imagine going back to the more "traditional" schedule. Having that much time is a huge psychological boost in terms of both my personal and professional lives.

I work a four day work week- wednesday through saturday - and I'm pretty happy. I love having 3 days off in a row! Win!

4 day work weeks will just make it easier for those fighting to get ahead to get even farther past the curve and easier for those who are struggling to make ends meet (by making time for more work on other days)... I'm all for it.

yes we should have a 4 day work week and a secretary that looks like and charms like Dolly Parton

We should have a 20 hour work week, which is incidentally what I have.

So much of our so-called productivity involves wildly superfluous production and consumption, and hoarding of individual wealth whereas shared wealth would go so much further. It's absurd that everyone has their very own automobile when a miniscule fraction of the time and resources involved in producing and maintaing cars would give us comfortable, efficient, state-of-the-art public transportation. No road rage, no traffic, no pumping gas, no parking (no parking lots). The inefficiency inherent in the system is astounding when you really stop to think about it. And yet somehow people insist on squandering the majority of their very lives on the ludicrous process of its upkeep.

So here's an interesting idea, lvp - hourly work used to be based on a steady, measurable productivity. But you're right - I think I'm the only person in this thread for whom reading and commenting on this actually counts as 'work'.

What if instead the metric for work was not time-based but task-based? You have to [verb] [x number] of [widgets] in [time span y].

How many of us really do actual work with in those 40 hours? The work isn't always there yet you sit there so you can get paid.

lol, >:D on the 5th day i'll smoke a J!

I think this makes a lot of sense. Not that a four-day workweek is like "the new model" -- rather, I just like the flexible thinking here. Work arrangements should be more heterogeneous in general.

I wonder: Adding up all workers in America, how many work a traditional, M-F/9-5 40-hour workweek? Especially if you exclude government employees. My guess is that it's less than 50%.

please?

I think for many companies the idea of a '40 hour workweek' is kind of a misnomer. For salaried employees paid a base rate the metric you want is x days of productive work. The Utah example works better maybe in the public sector than in the private?