Fun fact: it’s been 100 years since Henry Ford introduced the five-day work week. Since then, not much has changed. We still run on five days as the default, while productivity has dramatically increased. Ok. Probably it wasn’t that fun. To be honest, it’s a little depressing knowing that not much has changed in 100 years with respect to labour. We can do better.
Yes, there have been some changes: we produce more, there are more rich people, and there’s more inequality too. I’ve been thinking about this lack of change since I learned about the 100th anniversary. What’s the point of keeping the same approach we had 100 years ago? We’ve taken some giant leaps in that time, leaps that should have changed how much we work. But they haven’t. We keep producing value to be distributed to shareholders. Everyone else, not so much.
I actually started thinking about this while walking. Walking helps me sort things out — what to write, how to frame it. What I kept coming back to was: what does this mean for someone trying to build a creative practice?
Creativity, for most of us, lives on the edges. It’s treated as a hobby, something you do beyond work, in the margins of the day. It’s not the main event. And if the structure of work has barely evolved in 100 years, then creativity has been stuck there too, relegated to whatever time and energy is left over after the five days are done, after the nine to five shift ends.
I believe the future of work has to include time and space. Time to create, time to think, time to connect. Space to build, space to experiment, space to fail. You can’t do that while the structure stays the same. It’s naive to think otherwise.
I have to say that I’m very lucky as I work a four-day week. Eighty percent salary and benefits. I recognise that I’m very fortunate to be in this position where the trade-off works for me. It has made a real difference to have time to allocate my attention properly to creative work, to start building Tyn Studio, and to actually have rest from work in a way that feels meaningful. My brain gets space to breathe, to disconnect and recharge. The ideas come more easily.
That said, I don’t think accepting less pay is the real solution. That’s putting the burden on the employees, and not solving anything. If the goal is genuine change, we should be working toward four days, or fewer, at full pay and benefits. Otherwise we’re just redistributing the burden, not lifting it.
100 years is a long time to still be having the same conversation. It’s time to actually try something different.