Odds are you’ve seen an article (or 20) about some company somewhere testing out a four-day workweek. And if you’ve scrolled past the story to the comments, you’ve probably spied a few cheers…and plenty of jeers. Punching in five days a week might seem like the natural working order—but it’s less a fixed and unchallengeable fact and more a human-shaped choice we can, you know, shape differently.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan asks Rodney Evans about lessons learned from her own four-day workweek experiment, how to navigate relationships with coworkers on different schedules, and why a four-day workweek is labor’s next evolutionary leap forward.

Mentioned references:

Wesley, from The Princess Bride
Gilmore Girls S3E11 “I Solemnly Swear”
Plinko boards
Icelandic study around 4 day work week
Anne Helen Petersen episode: BNW Ep. 77 with Anne Helen Petersen
Henry Ford and the 40 hour work week
Anne Helen Petersen article “Who’s Afraid of the Four Day Work Week?”
op rhythm: BNW Ep. 118
retrospectives
remote work episode: AWWTR Ep. 4
Joel at Buffer episode: BNW Ep. 6 with Joel Gascoigne
Fosbury flop
Atlantic “Kill the Five-Day Work Week”
JEDI work: BNW Ep. 40 with Sharan Bal
UBI (universal basic income)
New Deal

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Brave New Work 81. Two Thumbs Up for the Four-Day Workweek