I toil fewer hours. The science to create a world more empowered.

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This week, I’ll be covering:

?? How to create a million new years of free time

?? What would the benefits of a 4 Day World be?

?? Where was I this week??

?? How you can work with me through engagements, communications, and being involved in creating a million new years of free time?

?? My nerdy audible listens on wellbeing

Creating a million new years of free time ??

When I turned 27, I made a decision to change my life. I set out on a mission to gain back 15,382 hours or 641 days of my time by working less and embracing a 4 Day Week. But why?

I grew up during the era of the Celtic Tiger in Ireland, a time of booming economic growth and prosperity driven by capitalism. Yet, as a teenager, I also witnessed the largest global economic recession since the Great Depression, when many struggled to make ends meet and keep a roof over their heads. pay their mortgages.

?I was a young working professional during the largest pandemic this world has seen in over a century. We had a collective wake up in society, a great reset on understanding the things that matter most to us - the health and time we spend with our family, friends and ourselves.?

?Over the years, I've observed that when we prioritise money above all else, it often disappoints us. However, when we shift our focus to time, we tend to experience greater happiness and connection with the world around us.

So last year, I made a decision to change my life. Faced with the ongoing global crises affecting our environment and humanity, alongside the rapid pace of change in our world, I came to terms with my inability to keep up with this relentless transformation. It was then that I realised the importance of seizing control over my own time, one of the few constants I could anchor myself to in this ever-evolving world.

?Time is the great equaliser, with everyone having twenty-four hours in a day, regardless of social status, career, health, or circumstances. That's why gifting more time to people offers a sense of certainty in an increasingly uncertain world.

But how do we create time? ?

I've personally experienced the benefits of working less, and today, I want to share with you the vision of a world whereby we’ve created a million new years of free time. Sounds impossible right? Well let’s break it down, courtesy of the wise words of Alex Soojung-Kim Pang . For a large part of the world, a 4 Day Week would generate 50 additional free Fridays per year.??

In a typical workweek of 5 days, this translates into 10 extra weeks annually. Over a span of 5 years, that's 1 year of working time saved. And this isn't just about one person; it's a global movement. 4 Day Week trials are taking place worldwide, from Brazil to South Africa, Japan to the United Kingdom.

What could a 4 Day World look like? ??

But why? What impact will all this free time have on us and the world we live in?

As a society we face many challenges, from rising disasters as a result of climate change to growing inequities within our societies; from fluctuating economies to global public health issues - all of which are veering us towards a path of unsustainability and disrepair. Without a fundamental change, the world around us will burn out, and so will we.

?As organisations struggle to grapple with the significant role that poor well-being has on their workforce and on society as a whole, there is a body of science on human performance which is emerging. This science is showing us that by building sustainable wellbeing in our people we can build a sustainable workplace and society.

I want you to imagine a world. One where we prioritise sustainable practices, nurture inclusive and connected communities, and empower individuals to lead balanced lives. Intrinsic to this is making people time affluent, not time poor. Within this, we could make fundamental changes to create a sustainable, equal, and healthy world. What would that look like?

?Sustainability ??

The average American worker spends about 54 hours per year just commuting to and from work? That's not only a massive time sink but also a significant carbon footprint. Research on the 4 Day Week by 4 Day Week - Global and Boston College , has found that when people work less hours, they commute less - up to 36 minutes, per person per week, as well as using more sustainable public forms of transport. By giving their workers permission to work less, organisations can further reduce their carbon footprint through reductions of energy consumption of up to 30%. Actions like this are how we create a more sustainable future.

But what do people do with the time they get back? We often hear the excuse from people ‘I don’t have time to help you out’. When we feel we don’t have enough time to get our own work done, how are we ever going to find time to help others? Interestingly, when organisations transition to reduced working hours, research shows that people use their time off not to do more work, but actually to give back to the world around them through greater levels of volunteering and community engagement.

What becomes evident, is that work acts as a barrier to our current thinking that we are time poor - but when we do fundamentally shift the expectations around working hours, we can also fundamentally change how people perceive the amount of time they have available to them, and thus what they do with that time. What we see is a society that starts to look less at self-interests, instead focusing on building a more communal, connected and equipoised society, leading on to a second benefit of reducing working hours.

Equality ?? ??

The 4 Day Week emerges as a beacon of hope for greater gender equality in both work and society.

Disproportionate amounts of part-time workers are female, so much so that a study by Pew Research Centre reported that about 42% of working mothers in the U.S. say they have reduced their work hours to care for a child or other family member. Research by Nobel Prize Laureate Prof Claudia Goldin found this is significant in the emergence of a gender pay gap between men and women. While salaries may start similar for both genders, the gap widens significantly when children are born and continues that way throughout a career.

These traditional cultural norms cause them to lose out in the workplace. Time as a metric to show 'dedication to the job' negatively impacts those groups not typically able to stay working the 9-5 or beyond schedule expected in many workplaces. When organisations transition to a 4 Day Week, they fundamentally change their philosophies around work, and start rewarding output instead of time as a performance metric, benefitting those who aren't as time affluent. Research has shown that this blueprint works , with countries operating policies that promote better work-life balance through initiatives such as flexible work hours, reporting lower gender pay gaps.

Equally important in the fight for equality is the cultural milieu around men and work. Because a 4 Day Week is a policy-for-all, research from Boston College and Cambridge University has seen parenting time by men double throughout 4 Day Week trials to nearly 35%. In particular, participants reported they felt organisational permission, for the first time, to take a step back from work. This is particularly important in the conversation around building a more equitable society. The future of work should be one where the burden of non-work responsibilities on women is lessened, and this can be achieved by encouraging men to take more time off work. To date, this has far too often been overlooked. As someone hoping to be a father in the future, I believe that gifting more time off to men and women allows both structural and cultural changes to how we currently juggle the many responsibilities that parents have - which we know has a significant impact on their health and wellbeing, leading to the third and final benefit of reducing working hours.?

Global Public Health ?? ??

Your health is your wealth. We hear this consistently in the societal narrative when people experience a period of illness. Despite the old maxim ringing true, as a society our health and wellbeing continues to be sacrificed for career accomplishment, prestige, or remuneration. In the American Psychological Societies Annual Work and Wellbeing survey , 77% of workers reported experiencing work-related stress. 57% of participants indicated experiencing symptoms relating to the phenomena of burnout. These rates have been increasing significantly over the past decade, largely due to the swift pace of societal change and the challenge of adapting to new paradigms regarding the duration and volume of work. Despite advancements in the world of health, we are seeing rates of chronic disease rising across the world, perpetuated in many instances by the lifestyle behaviours of people across their lifetime.

In fact, according to the World Health Organization, work-related stress is the leading cause of occupational disease worldwide, contributing in large parts to leading deaths from heart disease, diabetes, obesity and cancer. A study published in The Lancet found that working long hours (55 hours or more per week) is associated with a 33% increased risk of stroke and a 13% increased risk of coronary heart disease. We need to address this growing issue in order to reduce the burden on not just our healthcare systems, but also the exchequer. Given adults spend about a third of our lives in work, reducing working hours holds the potential to trigger a revolution in how we create new sustainable lifestyle behaviours to improve the health and wellbeing of our people.

We have collectively decided to place money as the saviour of all our woes and worries. And while yes, we all need enough to survive, we know that working longer hours and earning more money doesn’t buy us happiness. Studies have also shown that long working hours are implicated in anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and worsened emotional well-being.

Importantly, research has shown that the inverse is also true. When working less hours people report lower levels of stress, improved levels of physical activity and sleep, and crucially increased psychological needs fulfilment through connecting with family and friends, and having additional time to pursue their own personal passions. With that opportunity available to us, it is important to acknowledge the role that our current wellbeing is having on our work.

Future of Work ??

Gallup's State of the Global Workplace report reveals a startling fact: only 15% of employees worldwide are engaged at work. Meanwhile, the World Health Organisation reports a staggering cost - 1 trillion US Dollars are lost in productivity each year. This loss stems from an outdated working paradigm that overlooks the essential link between the well-being of the workforce and achieving optimal performance. And so we must starting asking ourselves – why are we working a 5 Day week when it is not working for us, or our world??

We find ourselves perpetually time-starved, a condition we've largely imposed upon ourselves. However, the converse holds true as well - we can collectively and consciously opt to work less and, in doing so, gift ourselves the precious commodity of time.

The old adage goes time is money, but what if time wasn’t money, but instead happiness through having more space to pursue the things you want to, and connect with the people you love.

?Let's make the change together ??

When I turned 27, I made a decision to change my life. Now I work for an organisation called 4 Day Week - Global that wants to change the lives of many.

In Bronnie Ware’s book ‘Top Five Regrets of the Dying’, the number one and two regrets are ‘I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself’ and ‘I wish I hadn’t worked so hard’. These sentiments, I believe, are deeply intertwined.

Time is the only currency that ever truly mattered. The 4 Day Week encourages us to think about how we spend our time at work -? to work smarter and better but not necessarily longer;? and to have the courage to become masters of our own time, designing a world of work that taps into the unrealised potentials in ourselves, our colleagues, and our society. It's time to embrace this transformation, for by changing how much we work, we can create a more sustainable, equal, happy and healthy future for us all.

Join me in helping create a million new years of free time. Join me in creating a 4 Day World.

Where can you catch me this week? ??

Catch me in some interviews in Bloomberg , Fortune , Yahoo and Allwork.space.

Work with me! ??

I’m trying to start the conversation around wellbeing interventions that work. According to high quality research from Wellbeing Research Centre at University of Oxford organisations are investing more money on wellbeing interventions than ever, and struggling to move the dial. Window shopping wellness is having a negative impact on our workforce, and it is time to follow the science. Help me build that conversation by working with me:?

• Have me speak at your next event or conference
• Bring me in to run a workshop session with your employees around evidence-based wellbeing interventions
• Join our growing movement at 4 Day Week - Global as we build a million new years of free time
• Educate your talent team about wellbeing and start with bottom-up designed interventions
• Sponsor my newsletter and reach thousands of likeminded people
• Connect about sponsored posts and influencer opportunities

If you’re interested in any of these, please DM me via LinkedIn or reach out at [email protected] .?

I’m an audible nerd - so here is this weeks book recommendation ??

Never not working by Malissa Clark

Right Kind of Wrong by Prof. Amy Edmondson

Till next time ??,