The 5-Hour Workday Club

I just caught up with a friend from out of town who works at JP Morgan as a mid-level manager. We talked about our present employment situations because we hadn’t seen each other in a long.

He explained that he worked from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, and that he occasionally had to jump on phone calls with co-workers in the Middle East in the evenings.

I then shared how I usually work for about five hours each day from 8AM to 1PM. and he was shocked how I make this progress in just 5 hours working.

To make my argument, I presented the following analogy: When I worked in Corporate America, I had to be in the office for around 9 hours per day, but I didn’t do any work during that time. It was more along the lines of:

• Time spent on important tasks: 3 hours
• Time spent in meetings: 2 hours.
• Time spent on email: 2 hours
• Time spent chatting & socializing: 1 hour
• Time spent on administrative tasks: 1 hour

My usual weekday now looks like this:

                     | Time spent on important tasks: 5 hours

That is all there is to it. There are no team members to email, no managers to meet with, no administrative/HR duties to complete, and no co-workers with whom to converse.

Because I only spend my time on items that move the needle, I can make great progress on my enterprises with a shorter workweek.

I don’t spend any time commuting, attending meetings, sending project updates to my bosses, or exchanging emails with others.

Junk Jobs

By the end of the twentieth century, economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that most individuals will only work 15 hours each week on average.

According to a 2019 report from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, the typical employed person works 8 hours every weekday (or 40 hours per week). Each weekday, the average full-time employee works for 8.5 hours (or 42.5 hours per week).

Graeber defines a BS (Bull Shit) job as:

“A a form of paid employment that is so completely pointless, unnecessary, or pernicious that even the employee cannot justify its existence even though, as part of the conditions of employment, the employee feels obliged to pretend that this is not the case.”

Graeber said on:

“Hell is a collection of individuals who are spending the bulk of their time working on a task they don’t like and are not particularly good at.”

He poses questions to people:

If your job disappeared tomorrow, would the world be a better or worse place? Going one step further, would anyone even notice it was gone?

When asked this question, a staggering 40% of respondents think that if their job disappeared tomorrow, no one would notice.

Despite significant advances in technology, innovation, and machines, the majority of humans still work eight-hour days.

Worse yet, some people believe that the world would be a better place if they lost their employment.

The 5-Hour Workday

It’s no secret that, despite being in the workplace for eight hours a day, most white-collar workers don’t actually work that long. Unfortunately, in today’s society, this is the standard schedule, and most workers must at least pretend to work for that long.

As a result, most people are taken aback when I tell them I only work for five hours per day. But, in comparison to when I worked in Corporate America, I’d say that I get more meaningful work done in five hours.

There’s a widespread idea (at least in the United States) that 8-9 hours of labor each day is “normal.” That, in my opinion, is absurd and perhaps counterproductive.

characteristics of deep work:

• Deep work is valuable
• Deep work is rare
• Deep work is meaningful

Long durations of uninterrupted concentration and focus are required for this type of activity. As a result, the maximum amount of time you can spend on this type of job per day is usually three to five hours.

Anders Ericsson, a productivity researcher, discovered that many top achievers in diverse industries seem to max out at three to four hours of deep work each day.

He observes that self-employed authors “tend to write only 4 hours a day, leaving the rest of the day for rest and recuperation.”

He also discovered that top violinists at a famous music college practiced for 3.5 hours each day on average. If you’re interested in learning more about his research, see his paper on Deliberate Practice.

Despite spending only five hours each day, quitting my employment has provided me the freedom to make great progress on my enterprises.

Since I no longer have to spend time driving to and from work, getting ready for and unwinding from work, and wasting time in meetings, my productivity has risen.

I can concentrate only on the work at hand rather than being distracted by the usual Corporate America time-wasters.

The eight-hour workday is no longer relevant in today’s world. That is why I have chosen to work a 5-hour day.