Tag Archives: The Atlantic

How Does a 25-Hour Workweek Sound to You?

Vocation is a very important part of our lives in today’s society. Vocation, usually, gives our lives a sense of purpose. At times, however, our vocation can get in the way of our lives. How? Overwork. This past summer, I linked to a couple of articles at The Atlantic that illustrate this point quite perfectly. The first: No-Vacation Nation: Why Don’t Americans Know How to Take a Break?. And the second: The Case for Vacation: Why Science Says Breaks Are Good for Productivity.

There’s a really important graphic from the first link. I’ve included it below, (but if it’s too hard to read, click on it and it will take you to a bigger version of it).

If you’ll notice, the US is absolute last on this list of OECD countries. Certainly not something that the US should be proud of.

Earlier this fall, I posted a TEDTalk of someone from the New Economics Foundation arguing for a 21-hour workweek. A couple of weeks ago, I came across a news release that the head of the Max Planck research centre was arguing for a 25-hour workweek. There are some key points:

When you’re 20, you would rather spend more time with your friends. When you’re 35, you want time with your kids. But then when you reach 70, you have far too much time on your hands.

This scenario probably sounds familiar to many people today. But there are good arguments for changing this. We should aim for more leisure time in our youth and instead work a bit more when we get older.

…

”There is strong evidence that elderly people who work part-time are healthier than those who don’t work at all and just sit at home. This is simply because working improves people’s health,” he says.

“The benefits are not just psychological because being an active part of society makes you people feel good about themselves, but also physically, since you use both your brain and your body when you’re working.”

There are also some good interpersonal arguments in support of spreading our working hours over a longer period in our lives.

”The main argument is that this would give young people aged 20-30 more time to care for their children, do sports and other important activities that improve their lives,” says the professor.

”The way it is today, young people are slaving their way through work, looking forward to a long retirement. But why not move that retirement period around a bit so that young people get more valuable time off work?”

How does all of that sound?

The thing is, there’s a culture of overworking. Working 60+ hours a week should not be a badge of honor — it should be a badge of ludicrousness (save for some extreme examples). Vocation is important, yes, but so are other things in life. And, if productivity is what you’re after, it’s important to understand that overworking one’s self is the perfect way to limit productivity. Remember that second link I share above:

It’s typical for families to celebrate the month of August by shutting down the computer and skipping town. From a raw numbers perspective, this counts as lost work. But that’s a short-sighted view, psychologists now say. In fact, by serving as the least productive month for millions of workers, August unexpectedly serves as a productivity-booster.

Just as small breaks improve concentration, long breaks replenish job performance. Vacation deprivation increases mistakes and resentment at co-workers, Businessweek reported in 2007. “The impact that taking a vacation has on one’s mental health is profound,” said Francine Lederer, a clinical psychologist in Los Angeles specializing told ABC News. “Most people have better life perspective and are more motivated to achieve their goals after a vacation, even if it is a 24-hour time-out.”

As with most things in business and in life, understanding the different between long-term gains and short-term profits is of the utmost importance with regard to the issue of the workweek.

Some Men Just Want to Watch the World Burn: Lessons from Hurricane Sandy

[Editor’s note: BuzzFeed just posted a note explaining that they have outed the Twitter user responsible for spreading this misinformation.]

Just before Hurricane Irene last year, I remember writing a post about how that kind of event could have a profound effect on people’s priorities. This year, the day after “Hurricane” Sandy, I can’t help but think of the misinformation.

Most of the day yesterday, I followed the coverage of Sandy on Twitter, diligently retweeting what I thought was pertinent information. While my Twitter following is currently less than 200, it still feels important that the information I share be correct (especially when it comes to events like yesterday). I like to think that the content of my tweets would be the same if I had 200,000 followers, but there’s no way to know that (without actually have 200,000 followers). Some people don’t share this sentiment.

Last night, there was (at least one) Twitter user who decided to spread false rumors. I don’t actually follow this Twitter user, but I did see a number of the reports that were *apparently* started by him. What possesses someone to spread misinformation during a crisis? I don’t know. One might try to develop some sophisticated argument tying the misinformation to a political gain, but I think that the threads of that argument are much too thin. The only other thing I could think of was the line from The Dark Knight: “Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

Some folks might put the onus on journalists who didn’t vet the tweets, which eventually led to CNN reporting that the floor of the NYSE was flooded. It kind of reminds me a bit of CNN’s misstep this summer with the report that “Obamacare” was deemed unconstitutional.

While there are these instances of misinformation spreading, there are also many positives to an instantly connected world (by way of the internet). For instance, when certain images were going viral, they were quickly shown to be fakes. In fact, both The Atlantic and BuzzFeed have posts showing examples of these from yesterday.

It looks like the internet makes quick work of fake images, but might still have a little while to go before it no longer falls prey to digital deception. In fact, Prof. Drezner argues that the internet does well with fast-moving memes (pictures, stock market flooding, etc.), but has a harder time with slow-moving memes (Pres. Obama was born in Kenya). It’s worth reading.

Has the Automobile Peaked: The Economist Thinks So…

This morning I was thumbing through my copy of The Economist to find an intriguing headline: “Seeing the back of the car.” The “briefing” at the top of the page said, “The future of driving.”

After reading through the article, it’s seems to me that the author makes a convincing point (with data!) that the automobile has reached its peak.. It’s pretty hard to argue with some of the evidence, too. I’ve included one of the more enlightening graphs below. In it, you can see that the percentage of people getting their license (as compared across years) is definitely declining. While we can’t necessarily say that this means the end of the car. It would certainly be a contributing factor, though, if this were to occur. The Economist isn’t the only place where this argument’s being made either.

Much has been made of the generations transitioning into the work world and their lack of affinity for buying houses and cars. There are some reasonable explanations for this, too. If we think about the era that they’ve grown up, owning cars and houses weren’t the “be-all, end-all” like it was for previous generations. There’s a strong preference for spending money on other things.

One of my more popular posts here at Genuine Thriving was something I wrote near the beginning of my time writing here called, “Advancing America’s Public Transportation System: High-Speed Rail in the USA.” In my weekly glance at the posts that get the most hits, it’s often near the top. There are a number of possible explanations, but I think it has to do with a greater affinity for public transportation (than there used to be). As someone who has spent time in a number of different cities and countries with varying qualities of public transportation, it seems to me that a successful public transit is one of the cornerstones to a thriving local economy.

Note: If you’d like more evidence that public transit is vital to a city’s economy, check out Richard Florida’s work, who’s a Professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.

Replacing the 40-hour Workweek with a 30- or 21-hour Workweek

This past summer, I posted a couple of articles from The Atlantic to Facebook. They both had to do with vacation — more specifically — the lack of vacation in the US when compared to other countries. As America’s health declines, I can’t help but think that there’s something to the idea of a shorter workweek and taking better care of ourselves.

This morning, I came across a TEDxTalk from one of the prominent members of the New Economics Foundation in London. In the video, she makes a rather compelling case for a shorter workweek. I don’t know that I agree with reducing the workweek to 21 hours, but I certainly think the conversation should be had as to the appropriate length of the workweek, especially in the context of declining health.