Is it time to rethink the 8-hour workday?

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/careersandeducation/is-it-time-to-rethink-the-8-hour-workday/ar-AArOaoO?li=BBnbfcL

Maurie Backman
Sept. 12, 2017

Americans certainly aren't strangers to working long hours. In fact, 40% of U.S. employees regularly put in over 50 hours of work per week, while 20% top the 60-hour mark. But even if we choose to consider these numbers extreme, the reality is that most employees are expected to adhere to the standard eight-hour workday.

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But depending on the nature of your work, putting in an eight-hour day may not end up being all that productive, especially on a consistent basis.

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And it's not just the famous scientists, authors, and artists of the past who conformed to the "less is more" theory. In a survey conducted in the 1950s, scientists who spent 25 hours at work per week were no more productive than those who only spent five. Not only that, but scientists who worked 35 hours a week were half as productive as those who put in 20 hours a week. A similar pattern, in fact, was observed among violin students who were the subject of a study in the 1980s.

The takeaway? According to author and researcher Alex Pang, four hours is actually the optimal amount of time to spend per day if your work is creative in nature, or requires a notable degree of thinking and concentration. In other words, if you work on an assembly line, you'll most likely maintain your productivity during an eight-hour shift. But if your job requires imagination, ingenuity, and above-average mental focus, you may be better off limiting that work to four hours per day, as opposed to eight or more.

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Remember, though four hours might be the ideal amount of time to focus each day on your key responsibilities, you don't necessarily want to do the same thing for four hours in a row. Quite the contrary -- giving your brain some time off is essential to your ultimate success.

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