So far our four-day work week experiment is working. We haven’t found ourselves collectively wishing we had an extra work day a week. We haven’t found ourselves gasping for extra hours. Instead I feel like we’ve been more focused and working better together.
Since going to the four-day work week just about a month ago we’ve released the following updates:
- A better project switcher in Basecamp.
- A complete revamp of tasks in Highrise.
- Reply to a message via email in Basecamp.
- Advanced search in Highrise.
- Bulk delete in Highrise.
- ...and a few more things coming soon.
Could we have gotten more good work done if we worked those extra five Fridays? I seriously doubt it. Would we have been happier working five extra days over the last 30? I seriously doubt it. Is a four-day work week better for morale and productivity than a typical five-day work week? I seriously believe it.
One thing I’ve come to realize is that urgency is overrated. In fact, I’ve come to believe urgency is poisonous. Urgency may get things done a few days sooner, but what does it cost in morale? Few things burn morale like urgency. Urgency is acidic.
Emergency is the only urgency. Almost anything else can wait a few days. It’s OK. There are exceptions (a trade show, a conference), but those are rare.
When a few days extra turns into a few weeks extra then there’s a problem, but what really has to be done by Friday that can’t wait for Monday or Tuesday? If your deliveries are that critical to the hour or day, maybe you’re setting up false priorities and dangerous expectations.
If you’re a just-in-time provider of industry parts then precise deadlines and deliveries may be required, but in the software industry urgency is self-imposed and morale-busting. If stress is a weed, urgency is the seed. Don’t plant it if you can help it.
Wim Leers
on 14 Apr 08I very much recognise the term “self-imposed urgency” here. I want to deliver my work as fast as possible to my clients. But often (actually, virtually always), my clients seem to be amazed by my speed, while from my own point of view, it was rather slow.
I think I’m going to try to chill out more. Thanks for writing this. I’ll be referring to this post a lot, I think. Bookmarked ;) :)
Tim Mesa
on 14 Apr 08Just out of curiosity, is this four day work-week four eight-hour days or four ten-hour days?
I’ve heard of people adopting the 4/10 schedule before, which just means the typical 40 work week compressed into four days rather than five.
JF
on 14 Apr 08Tim, we don’t count hours so I don’t know for sure. People work as much as they feel comfortable with to get the job done in a reasonable amount of time. Sometimes that’s a few hours a day, sometimes it’s 8+. It all depends. Each person is productive in different ways.
And of course, being at the office 8 or 10 hours doesn’t mean you are working 8 or 10 hours. If most people get 4-5 solid hours of real work in a day I’d call that a success. So when people say they work 10 hours a day for 4 days, I call BS. I say they probably get 25 good real work hours in a week if they’re lucky.
So we cut out all the “you have to be at the office” BS and encourage people to spend their time on real work. So 20-30 hours of real work seems about right. Sometimes more, sometimes less.
Gordon Nelson
on 14 Apr 08@JF… Rather off-topic but after reading your list of achievements made during this experiment, I found myself wondering why you guys don’t have greater transparency with your work items. It seems to be popular among similarly-sized companies to expose your sdlc artifacts (in basecamp, i presume?) to your customers. Is it to avoid artificial expectations? It could serve to calm down some of the more “pushy” customers who wonder why good development takes time. On a personal note, as a developer myself I have to admit that I’m curious how your approach actually manifests in day-to-day development.
kevin
on 14 Apr 08@JF : When you say you’re not counting hours, do you have an approximate idea of what people are doing ?
For me between 8 hours of work or just 4 there is a huge difference.
And working 32 vs 16 hours can’t be the same.
JF
on 14 Apr 08Kevin, I have absolutely no idea how many hours people are working. I do know what they are working on and what they are getting done.
In regards to hours, I don’t care unless people are working too many hours. They are the best judge of that. If they feel like they are burning out or working too long they let us know. We don’t push anyone. Nothing is worth burnout. Our people know what they need to do and they tell us when it’s going to be done. I rarely dictate deadlines.
As long as the work gets done in a reasonable amount of time I don’t care if someone puts in 3 hours a day or 8 hours a day. I do care if someone puts in 12 though. We definitely don’t encourage those kind of hours. Every once in a while it’s fine if someone’s in a zone, but it’s not sustainable.
SoftwareSweatshop
on 14 Apr 08Brilliant post. Mercilessly expunge the time wasting activities from your schedule. Be proactive and think smart. Common sense goes a long way.
Raza Imam http://SoftwareSweatshop.com
Richard
on 14 Apr 08@Jason… Yes you are on the right track.
I believe that if, as a manager, you have to impose an arbitrary ‘hours worked’ base framework on your people, you have hired the wrong resources or you are not a leader. Great employees are balanced people who have a desire for many things in life. This includes their work product. If you have the right people, their pride and inner drive (and your good leadership) will ensure the work product is delivered in a reasonable time frame and will exceed expected results.
When extra time is needed I understand the extra effort they have too put in from time to time is borrowed from their family and life. I then make every attempt to give it back with interest. Meaning giving more time back to them then they had to give up.
4 days, 5 days, 20 hours, 30 hours, 50 hours. Who cares. If you strike the right balance you will always be ahead of the competition and your people will be sold out to the future of your company.
This is important because turn over from burned out people is one of the most costly thing you can experience.
Rodrigo Leme
on 14 Apr 08I agree 100% with you Jason. Where I work, everything is urgent, and that pretty much kills half the week’s productivity.
It also creates a bizarre situation: when the workload reduces and there’s more “free time” to do things patiently and in a more planned way, people are actually less productive.
Conclusion: we are all hooked on urgency. Not to mention our bosses are highly resistant to flexible schedules, which makes matters worse.
What’s with bosses that don’t acknowledge people are not productive at the same time, for the same amount of time and at the same time frame?
Mike Rumble
on 14 Apr 08The problem is that people perceive a lack of urgency as laziness or poor time management.
If a client asks when a task will be complete you have to tell them something, however specific (“tomorrow lunch time”) or fuzzy (“by the end of the month”) it may be.
When that time rolls around I think it would be pretty unreasonable to then say “well it can wait”.
If you anticipate a task will take longer than originally stated the trick is to be honest and let your client know as soon as you do of any possible delays and what you’re doing to avoid things slipping further.
Seth Ladd
on 14 Apr 08I’m certain you already know how lucky you are to be able to set your own deadlines. Most of us in the real world, however, work for a customer. And this customer has their own business requirements, business needs, and business problems. It is precisely these business problems that created the need for a software solution in the first place. These business problems need solutions, often immediately.
Not many organizations can afford to take their time, not rush, have no urgency, and otherwise work at their own pace. This is because these organizations often are competing in the free market, against other organizations. The slower organization will lose.
I can’t ever imagine telling any client, “Meh, we’ll work at our own pace and you’ll get it when you get it.” They would simply say, “OK, no prob. We’ll find someone who is willing meet our requirements.”
Anonymous Coward
on 14 Apr 08I’ve been dealing with deadlines for so long that I’m not sure how to deal without them—I’m at a phase right now on a project where I have the complete flexibility to do the job right, no matter whether it takes six weeks or six months, and the lack of a deadline is making it really hard for me to feel any motivation to get started on the project. This is not a good thing.
And @Seth: it’s not that “things are done when they’re done,”—I work in a workplace that aspires to be as laid back as 37signals. The customer has requirements, and then the developers say “that will take approximately so long,” and then the management adds 50% for testing and unforeseen circumstances, and then publishes a schedule. As long as that schedule is being met, management is happy. Minor schedule slippage is the developers’ problem to fix (especially if we’ve been working slack weeks); major schedule slippage, because of unforeseen circumstances or uncommunicated requirements, is management’s problem to fix.
The organization that works 80-hour weeks to get it done fast, fast, fast—they make stupid mistakes, and they have staff that burn out. It’s better to be second or third to market with a quality product and people who know the domain than it is to be first to market with a shoddy product and burnt-out staff.
Don’t fall for the myth of “the real world.”
Tony Wright
on 14 Apr 08I’ll back you up on the ”...they probably get 25 good real work hours in a week if they’re lucky.” sentiment (with real data).
By virtue of the software that we offer, we have a pretty solid minute by minute picture of how people spend their weeks. With our new team offering, we can look at our team average, and 25 hours of productive time per week is pretty common.
JF
on 14 Apr 08I’m certain you already know how lucky you are to be able to set your own deadlines. Most of us in the real world, however, work for a customer.
Ah, the mythical, absolute “real world.” The real world is the one you choose to live in. Your world is no more real than my world. I’m sorry you’re trapped in yours.
Daniel Higginbotham
on 14 Apr 08How did you guys work when you were first starting out? Do you think your approach would apply to software developers just starting out?
@Seth – I think Jason is focused on sustainable development, and there is ample opportunity to do things the way he mentions out there in the fabled real world, both on an individual level and on an organizational level. If you work as a freelancer, there are plenty of potential clients out there who are reasonable and even a joy to work with, without having to break your back trying to please them. Organizations are likewise free to find good clients and say no to the bad ones.
Your last paragraph, about saying “you’ll get it when you get it”, implies that the 37s approach would be irresponsible in most real world situations. I would argue the opposite – that setting clear expectations which allow you to work happily and unsustainably is the responsible path. If you take that path you’ll be much more reliable, delivering quality work at a steady pace and able to handle actually urgent situations better when they arise.
Jim Jones
on 14 Apr 08Jason, are you sure it’s not just the Hawthorne Effect at work here?
Thibaut Barrère
on 14 Apr 08Excellent post. I hope this will become the norm, one day.
Like many, I found out that some days, under certain circumstances, a person or a team can achieve amazing goals in a short span of time.
We should definitely focus on making this common, and I believe a four-day week is one way to achieve this.
Thanks for sharing this insight.
—Thibaut
Neil Wilson
on 14 Apr 08A good plan should have as much chance of being delivered early as it has late. That way you know you’re in the middle of the bell curve.
Work to tighten your standard deviations so that your estimates are tighter, resist all pressure to move the target to the left of the bell curve. It always ends in tears eventually.
And the classic way to deal with deadlines is to deliver something early and often. You can always trim scope.
I’m glad this experiment is working. I’m hoping that it gets written up in classic 37s style because the theory behind it has been there for nearly 40 years. It’s good to see a solid successful company using it and being prepared to talk about it.
Peter Urban
on 14 Apr 08I agree with the idea and I am sure most of the other readers agree too. The trouble starts when you are a professional service provider working for (larger) clients that demand deadlines for no other reason then i.e a board meeting presentation. A week later you find out that it didn’t even make it on the agenda and it’ll sit for two month now before you can finish the project. Thank you very much for making me and my team work day and night over the weekend… dear Highness.
By establishing those empty deadlines and then dropping the matter forever the middle management of many corporations communicate a clear message to their service providers: ‘We don’t value your time, we don’t appreciate your work ethics and we don’t take your input serious – just get the freaki’n job done and shut up’.
What they get in return is that most service provers don’t care about their projects an inch beyond the cash that’s in it. Why? Because most of it is fake. Fake deadlines, fake decisions (why are we changing the tag-line, oh because we need to reflect that we have a new CEO…) fake urgency, fake priorities and fake confidentiality…. Why would you care?
Again I agree, there is nothing that destroys morale in a team more then the above issues and the underlying urgency on those matters. The question is how to escape it when you are at the client’s mercy.
JF
on 14 Apr 08The trouble starts when you are a professional service provider working for (larger) clients that demand deadlines for no other reason then i.e a board meeting presentation.
The problem doesn’t start with the clients, the problem starts with you (I mean that in the nicest possible way). You have to work with the right kind of clients and set the right kind of expectations. Clients expect what you tell them to expect.
A small example… When we were doing client work, clients expected 3 design comps from us. Why 3? Well, that’s just how everyone else did it. We told them up front that we only do one design comp. We explained why this was in their best interest. Initially they were skeptical, but since we explained it clearly, and set the proper expectations, they ended up more than satisfied with the process.
It is up to you to set expectations. Clients don’t set expectations, you do.
Daniel Tenner
on 14 Apr 08@JF: I’ve found that most people (myself included) work much better and more efficiently when there is some sort of deadline with some sort of urgency In fact, I wrote a post about this some time ago about a related article: http://www.inter-sections.net/2008/03/21/false-endpoints-and-the-pareto-principle/
You can wave the so-called “real world” away because nothing bad will happen if you miss your deadlines at 37signals. However, not all deadlines are manufactured, and in many environments deadline are very real. If you were building your first application as a seed-funded startup, for instance, deadlines definitely do matter, because when your deadline is up you’ve either gone live, or you’re dead.
There’s also, of course, the effect of Parkinson’s Law – work will expand to feel the time available. 37signals, thanks to its successes (mostly thanks to the initial success with Basecamp) can afford to overspend massively on software development, but most other organisations cannot. Time is money, after all (unless you want to go without a salary).
Ultimately, I suspect that your system works very well in a non-threatening environment, but if you had 38Signals sucking away all your paying users at a rate of 100/day, you’d probably change your mind about deadlines.
JF
on 14 Apr 08If you were building your first application as a seed-funded startup, for instance, deadlines definitely do matter, because when your deadline is up you’ve either gone live, or you’re dead.
Oh yeah? When is that deadline? On Friday at 6pm? And if you aren’t live by 6:01pm Friday what happens? All the work that’s gone into what you are building is just thrown away? Or do reasonable people say “How about Monday or Tuesday? Can we get it out by then?” And if they don’t say that, and they pull your money because you didn’t hit a specific deadline with no wiggle room then consider yourself lucky. That working relationship was doomed from the start. A missed deadline and killed deal was just a symptom of a deeper infection. I can’t image a worse working relationship than one devoid of reason, fairness, and understanding. Anyone who wants to pull the plug on you because you are human is barely human themselves.
37signals, thanks to its successes (mostly thanks to the initial success with Basecamp) can afford to overspend massively on software development, but most other organisations cannot.
What does “overspend massively on software development” mean? You can’t afford to put out crap products, that’s what you can’t afford to do. And if the deadline is more important than the product then crap is what you’re going to get. So if by overspending you mean taking an extra few days to finish something to get it right, then yes, we’re happy to overspend.
Ultimately, I suspect that your system works very well in a non-threatening environment, but if you had 38Signals sucking away all your paying users at a rate of 100/day, you’d probably change your mind about deadlines.
Are you suggesting we don’t have competition? We have gobs of competition. All over the place. Huge companies, small companies. Free alternatives, cheaper alternates, fuller featured alternatives. Somehow getting something done on Tuesday that was supposed to be done on Friday seems to be working out just fine. We’ve always worked this way and will continue to work this way. It’s healthier and there’s no substitute for good health.
Anonymous Coward
on 14 Apr 08i BELiVE ULTiMATLEY THiS iS PURE ASTONiSHiNG.
James
on 14 Apr 08I suppose this works for some situations and not for others. One case where it may not work is when your work is a dependency in a larger plan (e.g. a microsite as part of a media campaign). If you are building the whole house then you are in charge of the entire schedule; however, if you are a flooring contractor you may have to complete the floors before the finishing goes in. I know one could stretch my analogue … but my point stands.
You may not realize that you are lucky and not everyone can choose to break out of the dependencies that arise naturally from their chosen work.
Matt
on 14 Apr 08Burning out is bad. Working quickly at the expense of quality is bad.
However, when you have just a vision, and that vision is for an innovative new product or service, and you don’t have any users or investors or anybody to even notice if you don’t realize your vision, you have two options:
Approach the mission of realizing your vision with passion and urgency
or
Let the vision remain just a vision
I wrote about this recently at:
http://blog.jabbik.com/2008/04/sense-of-urgency.html
gwenhwyfaer
on 14 Apr 08Most medicines are poisonous. We take them when we’re already so sick that poisoning ourselves has become worth it to poison whatever is making us sick.
Peter
on 14 Apr 084-day work week is a great start.
Next stop? 30-hr work week!
Matt Radel
on 14 Apr 08Few things burn morale like urgency.
My head A-splode! Urgency is the sworn enemy of morale, and urgency almost always succeeds in stabbing morale right in the heart with a wooden stake (or a lightsaber – you choose your own weapon for the mythical battle).
Very rarely urgency can be exciting, especially when it pays off in winning a client or some other type of work. But 99.999% of the time it just sucks. Keep living the dream fellas, and keep telling us how great it is. Mayhaps some folks will listen.
Daniel Tenner
on 14 Apr 08@JF: Small slippages turn into big slippages. I wouldn’t care about the fact that something is done on Tuesday instead of Friday – if it wasn’t for the effect on later deadlines. And I certainly don’t care about “what time on Friday”.
I’ve rarely seen any catch up on a late plan. People are always optimistic, from the developers to the project managers to the stakeholders, but in practice, a late project only ever gets later.
If you’ve broken down your product development into a 3-month plan, and the stuff that was supposed to take the first 2 weeks takes 4 weeks instead, chances are your 3-month plan is actually a 6-month plan.
That’s fine if you can afford to spend 6 months on it, but if you can’t, you’re stuffed. That makes the deadline next week important, because of its effect on the deadline 3 months from now.
As I said, once/as long as you have the luxury of being able to entirely set your deadlines, do it. But if you’ve got a limited runway like most of us, you better make sure your slippages don’t end up adding up to a crash.
To add on to this, until you release your product, you have no idea what might make it perfect. Only users can tell you that. Better to get something imperfect out in front of the users and listen to them than to take twice as long to build something that you think is perfect and then find out that it’s no good.
Elliott
on 14 Apr 08Jason, I couldn’t agree more.
I hope to be able to own a company one day so I can do the same! For now, I’m aiming to get into a job working 12 hours a day like all the other drones.
Being a student currently, I’m lucky to get 25 mins of work done a day ;)
asif
on 14 Apr 08If you can’t work 40 hours a week without burning out and losing focus, you might consider a different field.
Why is it that programmers think they are the exception to the way the rest of the workers in the world operate? “We need ping pong tables in our break rooms”, “We need casual day every day”, “We should only have to work 4 days a week”. Grow up.
acev
on 14 Apr 08asif,
Every field is an exception to every other field. It is a well-known fact that people in a creative profession cannot operate beyond a certain limit. You might think that your people work 40.0 hours a week, but they do not.
Of course, might be that your people are not being creative but instead just cogs in a machine. Then it certainly works, but then you’re not talking about programmers.
Gordon Nelson
on 14 Apr 08@asif: People seem to lump programmers in with other office workers. The reality is that programming is a creative act and, as such, is not a profession that lends itself to a 40hr work week where the workload is evenly distributed throughout. Creative impulses come in spurts and companies need to create environments which are conducive to maximizing the potential for one of these spurts to occur. The best thing a company can do to maximize the output of its programmers is allow them the freedom to do whatever they need to do to get into the zone. If that means casual clothes – great. If that means fridays off – also great. And if that means ping-pong games to clear the mind – a smart company would at least consider it.
sudara
on 14 Apr 08Love it.
This is a great post, Jason.
Alex - Erie, PA
on 14 Apr 08“in the software industry urgency is self-imposed and morale-busting”
Do you have advice on how we can train our managers to limit the amount of deadlines and allow us to create better products?
I don’t have the luxury of working at a self-defined schedule. These come from the product managers (and most probably promotional sales cycles).
Until I get to work for a smaller firm or run my own firm, these decisions are not easy to implement. The luxury of releasing when we feel like it is limited.
What can we do to “cope” until we can be in your position?
Matt
on 14 Apr 08Jason…I like the experiment.
Similar to the concept of “time boxing”, but with the 37 Signals twist. Given the smaller deliverables that you focus on, the 4 day work week seems about right.
In my previous life (as a Project Manager at a very large insurance company), I remember being derided for formally proposing a modified time box of the company’s “standard” 6-week development time box.
I proposed that the development team work 6, 6-day weeks and 1 week off (which, frankly, only formalized how much the team was working anyway).
After being told, “no way” (and thinking I had just Jerry Maguire’d myself), I said screw it and told my development team if they got the 6 weeks of stuff finished right and early, I would look the other way while they did whatever (skunk works, out of the office, etc).
The team kicked ass on the deliverable schedule (more items were done, on time, and with less problem reports).
It was an experiment that worked. The project finished, had a better-than-average close out, and the team was re-org’d to other projects, but it was a very interesting how a different outlook made a big difference.
Wow, the concept of freedom…how novel.
Benjamin Hirsch
on 14 Apr 08AMEN Jason:
“The only urgency is emergency”
Daniel Tenner
on 14 Apr 08Just a note to all the people who claim Software Engineering is unique because it’s creative, etc.
I’d love to think programming is unique in that way. However, I happen to have a number of friends who are Architects (building the real stuff) in one of the top architecture practices in London. They work their asses off. They don’t get paid as much as we do, either. Their profession is undeniably creative – there are an astounding number of parallels between the architecture and programming processes. But they don’t complain about deadlines, etc. They deal with it and still build fantastic buildings (and their buildings don’t crash either – they have a much lower tolerance for ‘bugs’).
And another example: my father used to be a journalist. In that profession, which is also creative, you are always working to an extremely tight daily deadline. That doesn’t seem to stop the creative juices flowing.
And another one: one of my friends is in advertising. All their work is to a deadline, and often a tight one. He still does it.
Creativity requires variety to work well, so you shouldn’t be doing just work all the time, but it certainly does not shy away from deadlines – that’s a myth.
Deadlines are a constraint. I seem to remember someone claiming that constraints are liberating.
Oh, lookie here, it’s 37signals: http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch03_Embrace_Constraints.php
Donna
on 14 Apr 08Well, you certainly have struck a nerve :) As a “graybeard’ type, I’ve heard this argument for 20 years – literally. Part of it is based in the history of our industry (programming), where we seem to have set very high expectations of what we can accomplish. My favorite analogy is from Tim Lister: If the Wright brothers were developing software instead of airplanes, their customers would have been standing on Kitty Hawk wanting to know when the next flight to LA was taking off. (Although Fred Brooks’ “Bearing a child takes 9 months, no matter how many women you assign to the project.” is a close 2nd)
When setting expectations, and negotiating deadlines, I always define the project using a 3 parameters, drawn as a triangle, with Quality, Quantity, and Cost(in time and/or $$) The customer gets to set 2, I get to set the third. If they want a lot of features (quantity) packed into a short schedule(cost), then the quality is going to suffer. If they want high quality, in a short time, we cut some features. The key is, as Jason said, we set expectations up front.
And come on, fess up – we all know when false deadlines are being set & we don’t believe them or work towards them.
@Jason – I applaud you for trusting your team. And putting their needs first. Its a scary thing for a manager to do – trust. But it earns you their respect and results in a very cohesive, motivated team.
Finally, for some old timer’s empirical data on Jason’s method – check out PeopleWare by Tom DeMarco & Tim Lister :)
Anonymous Coward
on 14 Apr 08JF
on 14 Apr 08Daniel, we embrace constraints all the time, but if something isn’t ready on Friday we don’t sweat it. Monday or Tuesday is fine too. And if it’s not ready by then it’s not because anyone was lazy, it’s probably because we didn’t estimate correctly or realize how challenging something would be. I’d rather the estimate breaks than the product breaks.
David Andersen
on 14 Apr 08“As long as the work gets done in a reasonable amount of time I don’t care if someone puts in 3 hours a day or 8 hours a day.
Really? I assume then that the compensation is different between developer A who works 3 hours a day and produces X and a developer B who works 8 hours a day produces (2.67)X. Why would developer B continue to work more than A if the pay is not proportional to the output (assuming quality/value is equal)?
David Andersen
on 14 Apr 08“and their buildings don’t crash either – they have a much lower tolerance for ‘bugs’
They usually don’t ‘crash’ (though there are exceptions) but they often fail in numerous small ways. Like software, there are no flawless buildings.
Derick
on 14 Apr 08After growing up in New England, I spent a few years in South Africa, where stores & university libraries are only open on weekends from 9am-1pm on Saturday mornings….it took some adjustment, but I really came to appreciate it. I came to use my weekend time much more effectively, and leave plenty of time open to spend with family and friends rather than running errands. Again…..constraints -> productivity.
My Life In a Cube
on 14 Apr 08I can probably do the same work in two days that I can in one or even three. Just give me the friggin deadline and I’ll have it done.
Booyah!
Justin French
on 14 Apr 08There’s nothing wrong with constraints like a fixed deadline either. It only starts to suck when other non-negotiable constraints (like the feature set) are also imposed. It really sucks when those constraints were chosen arbitrarily.
Geoff
on 14 Apr 08Seems to me like the talk ought to be about contribution rather than hours worked. Too little emphasis on the former, and you’ll end up with a work environment like the fictional Twentieth Century Motor Company.
Shaze
on 14 Apr 08JK:
You are my hero sir! Continue to keep this up and you are going to change the world for the better; I mean, who would want to work any other way?
Can’t take away my Health Care. Can’t take away my free Internet. And hopefully soon, you won’t be able to offer me a job that requires me more of my life than I’m willing to give.
condor
on 14 Apr 08Jason, the initial post is great, your follow up comments are brilliant. The idea that one should be responsible for picking their partners (customers, clients, etc.) gets lost and I think leads to a lot of frustrating, miserable working experiences, when really those bad experiences are so easy to avoid; be careful who you chose to sell to and who you work with.
Killian
on 14 Apr 08You know how some sports players play better when they are mad- JF writes better when he’s mad!
I’m glad you still update the blog on Friday- some of us need something besides work to do on those slow days (j/k).
JF
on 14 Apr 08You know how some sports players play better when they are mad- JF writes better when he’s mad!
Me.
androcass
on 15 Apr 08I recently posted a comment on my own blog which included a response to this thread. Without getting deeply into the matter, I violated my own rules as to proper debate. I have some disagreements with some of what Jason has posted here, and I stand by those; I think his perspective may be a bit skewed by his own experiences – that may change as he is buffeted by change in the future.
However, I went farther than I wished, and, instead of commenting on the substance of his remarks, I used a term that was intemperate. I should not comment on his tone unless I can handle my own. So I apologize to Jason, and hope that his view of the workplace spreads, because, unlikely as it sounds, it matches my view far more than I expressed.
Terra
on 15 Apr 08The real uptick in quality that comes from this comes over time in my opinion.
Its the quality that comes from that person not working for a year there and then quitting. Keeping people around longer is far more important than keeping them there on friday.
Focusing on the quality of output rather than the appearance of hard work is important.
JF
on 15 Apr 08Its the quality that comes from that person not working for a year there and then quitting. Keeping people around longer is far more important than keeping them there on friday.
Terra, that is spot on. I wish I would have written it. A wonderful insight into what really matters.
Kesey
on 15 Apr 08...and best of all when you work only 4 days a week, there’s plenty of time to cry about Google offering an app like Campfire only for free.
Dandabelle
on 15 Apr 08As a project manager and a development manager I can attest to the useless pressure of real and imaginary urgency.
I applaud 37 signals for creating a people centered culture that is based on results. That is a courageous thing to do – you can see from the comments that there are crowds of people always willing to howl you down when you try these kinds of things – particularly when you make an effort to share your experiences.
People centric thinking delivers greater results and is more rewarding for all involved. You can’t help that there will be people who try to take advantage of people centric approaches but that does not mean you should stop using them. It means you should fire those people who dishonour them.
Most organisations are just not gung-ho enough about this fact. If someone fails to meet standards, don’t penalise everyone else and keep them, get rid of them! Reward your staff by hiring people who are willing to make the same bargain that they do – who is willing to work to the best of their ability and who honours the commitment of others with a similar level of commitment and achievement of their own.
There will always be nay-sayers who grasp onto the false ideology of the ‘real world’. 37 signals is not a figment of the imagination – if they can do it why can’t you and your organisation? It’s just a lack of commitment on the behalf of these organisations and individuals. Its just fear and fear always needs friends – which is why there are so many comments narking off about developers and the the ‘real world’ and ‘being practical’.
The real truth may be that if you want to try these approaches then you will have to be courageous enough to make the changes happen. This may mean leaving a crappy but cushy job, jeopardising the mortgage payments by starting your own company, or standing up and demanding change in your current organisation. In the end there is no organisational culture but the one you make for yourselves. Expecting less from everyone is exactly what you end up getting.
oo
on 15 Apr 08For the past few years I’ve worked only four days a week, leaving myself a full (fri)day for the many side projects I was running at that time. It turned out friday was the most productive day of the week, I did things I would never find the time for and I learned much by digging into the web’s latest buzz.
Now I’m in a new job, five days a week, the weekends fly by faster than ever and I barely find the time investigating new technologies, go shopping or even read a book.
Kenan
on 15 Apr 08Jason, I am one of your silent blog readers and fan. I own a similar web app development company just like yours but unfortunately, we still couldn’t implement the 4-days work in our business model and office life-style.
We have some concerns such as support and sales enquiries. How do you handle them in a 4-day work office life-style. You know, people who use your web apps (customers) will be waiting for an instant answer (at least in 24 hours) and also there will be lots of sales enquiries which will probably turn into new customers and cash when you reply them. How do you handle these in 4-day work method?
Beside of my concern, I think every web app development company must change their working styles to 4-day work model. We are eager to test it out.
Steve R.
on 15 Apr 08Jason -
This is a perfectly times post. I suggest in your next version of Getting Real, you address the whole work balance issue in much greater depth than last time – people are not getting it. Suggested topics: myth of the 9-to-5-er; why meetings are not productive… usually; and how to create your own ‘real world’. Just a few suggestions, esp. the last – I’d buy the book again just for that.
Excellent insight, and thank you.
Cormac
on 15 Apr 08You comments on the number of hours worked in a day are accurate – I worked as a freelancer for 2 years, and the maximum productive time I could get out of myself in a 9.30-6 working day was 6 hours.
JF
on 15 Apr 08We have some concerns such as support and sales enquiries. How do you handle them in a 4-day work office life-style. You know, people who use your web apps (customers) will be waiting for an instant answer (at least in 24 hours) and also there will be lots of sales enquiries which will probably turn into new customers and cash when you reply them. How do you handle these in 4-day work method?
Stagger people’s schedules. So if you have two support people or two sales people, have one work Monday-Thursday and have the other work Tuesday-Friday. Then you have all your customer days covered and still shorter workweeks.
Benjy
on 15 Apr 08I used to work for a company that often did have real firm, must-hit deadlines regularly—it was an online auction and if a product was up for auction and closing at a certain time/on a certain day, then creative had to be done to support it (particularly if the bids were still below cost).
But that mentality permeated everything at times, even when it was some step of a long-term project. I finally did get good at the “Does this really need to be done by x time on y day, or z ok?”
When deciding whether to question a deadline, I’d ususally ask myself and/or my boss these 3 questions: “Will somebody die as a result of my not doing something?” “Will it cause the company to go bankrupt/close down?” “Will it cause the company a significant loss of money?”
The first two are clearly not likely, the last one maybe but not usually…
Andy
on 15 Apr 08You can’t get ripped abs in 6 minutes. It takes at least 7 minutes!
Great post Jason.
Fabio Falci
on 15 Apr 08Great! But here in Brazil I’m in a 44 hour week, almost 9 hours by day! 5 day week… Jason, could you please open a 37signals here in brazil? :)
Jeff Putz
on 15 Apr 08“Why is it that programmers think they are the exception to the way the rest of the workers in the world operate?”
Not the rest of the world, just the US. We seem to be hanging on to the industrial revolution era mindset that we stand on a line and do something for eight hours a day and go home. That’s not what developers do. Also consider that developers tend to be smart people who think things through a bit more, and reach the inevitable conclusion that a balanced life is the true good life, not money, title or status.
Evan
on 15 Apr 08Jason, could you please open a 37signals here in brazil? :)
There you go. Could we get a kit for opening a 37signals franchise?
John
on 15 Apr 08Man, I am all about working less! Seriously, I want someone to hire me to work 10am-2pm, 3 or 4 days a week, I could take a 2 hour lunch, carry a breif case.
No, but seriously, congrats 37S, that sounds great, and I am very envious.
matthew
on 15 Apr 08I find I work better when I have some kind of deadline, but having to rush rush rush for a client usually doesnt produce a great product.
Alot of times, being able to explain to the client why their timeframe is ridiculous has helped gain extra time to do quality work on my side and has helped build the relationship with the client.
Patrick
on 16 Apr 08Along the lines of your urgency = morale-killer maxim is the following that comes up when everyone is fighting for your time and attention and artificially inflating their tasks’s importance.
Corollary 1a: When everything is important, nothing is important.
ekka
on 16 Apr 08The Term DEADline is part of the problem. People hear that and the pressure is on, before there is any real pressure.
Don’t use it in your convos with the cleint/stakeholders and they won’t get hung up on it at gate reviews.
Can be hard trying to bring a web solution to life in an environment of project managers with no web development experience.
Most of the time is spent not on improvement/simplification ideas, but on explaining and reminding them, in order to take their focus off an arbitrary DEADline, why it is important to allow some evolution and natural selection to influence the build.
The upside is that having had to repeat the same speil so often, it makes stakeholder management easier because I have it down pat and can deliver it quickly and efficiently.
Nathan L. Walls
on 16 Apr 08“The real world is the one you choose to live in. Your world is no more real than my world. I’m sorry you’re trapped in yours.”
AMEN
Aside from the describing the false sense of urgency endemic to much of work culture (dare I say American culture?), Jason nails it with the “you own your experience.”
Even if you don’t agree with a four day work week, fundamentally, you made a decision to be there and accept your work environment and experiences.
The company or the client isn’t the one holding a gun to your head. You are. You can put the gun down at the time of your choosing.
jj
on 16 Apr 08Actually, this just shows that those clients are always living in this urgency state of mind. Also, it shows that those clients’ companies are managed with the ass.
The reason why they come to you with the urgency is because they have internally been delaying something for too long and now they want you to fix their mess—-and of course they will blame you for not having something ready on (their) time.
I’ve seen this quite often. However, if you say you can’t deliver it NOW, but tomorrow, often they’ll manage to survive, because a) they probably have no time (or will) to look for, find and try with someone else, and b) it wasn’t so urgent after all.
jim boston
on 16 Apr 08lazy,lazy,lazy…. you guys are making excuses for your laziness. we tried the 4 days week in our office several years ago… it was not for the reasons you cited above. it was because we had no work! s oas t osave on electricity and the like.
i think you guys have no projects coming in…this is the reason for the 4 days week.
if you have work then even a 7day week seems not enough…
YOU GUYS HAVE NO WORK!!!!
David
on 16 Apr 08jim boston – it seems that you’re the one making excuses for your failure to manage the process properly. If you can’t manage the level of work in a project to fit with your employees contracted working hours, regardless of the number of days, then you have already failed at a management level. A little extra effort here and there by motivated employees in order to meet specific deadlines is worlds away from demanding that your employees work outside their contracted hours every day. Such a policy only ever leads to resentment and eventual shedding of staff as they slowly burn out over time. In what sense is that a means for building a sustainable business?
The concept that working twelve hours a day every day allows a constant level of productivity is absolute BS. If you claim to be a developer and you also claim that you can maintain the same level of concentration and effort over that period of time and over a period of months or years then you are also full of BS. Additionally, you have little to no quality of life.
The simple truth is that if you hire the right people who are treated well then they will be self-motivated to work dilligently. They may well even go out of their way for you. But best of all they’ll be happy doing it, and everybody wins.
Jeff Hobbs
on 16 Apr 08Where I used to work, we had a saying: “Fake Urgency”. Pretty much all urgency imposed by upper management was of that type. The downside is that when Actually Urgent items ar, everyone was so jaded by all the Fake Urgent items that no one moved any faster than normal.
Nathan L. Walls
on 16 Apr 08@Jeff Hobbs: Anything marked “urgent” in email is nearly routed out of my inbox for that very reason.
Anon
on 16 Apr 08“The real world is the one you choose to live in. Your world is no more real than my world. I’m sorry you’re trapped in yours.”
Nope, there really is an empirical world. What we have is unique viewpoints, based on our personal histories. The notion that we can live in our own worlds indicates that your world is very insular, which is the exact point that the OC was making (that your viewpoint did not match an empirical world). It’s a very 21st century, me-generation, post-modern viewpoint, so don’t feel bad, you’re not the only one expressing it.
What does Urgency have to do with a 4-day work week? That relates to Productivity. But it is a catchy title. Anyway, it’s not poisonous, it’s difficult. The need to categorize possible detractors in such negative light is indicative of a weak argument. It’s only a poison when it happens too often.
Days turn into weeks after 3 months in your new system, when you’ll have taken off 2 weeks of Fridays. Just a neutral observation.
Finally, now that our protestant work ethic has finally started to devolve to decadence, we’ll surely make an easy target for India and Japan. China, too.
So it’s good, let’s end this on a bang! (this comment, and our way of life)
David Holliday
on 16 Apr 08It doesn’t matter if you’re working a 7 day week or a 1 day week as long as the work gets done and you are proud of the results.
If you interpret Jason’s post correctly it’s about making sure every hour spent working is a productive hour. One day you may sit down and spend 8 hours working constantly, in a highly productive state. The next day you may only achieve 1 hour of work. The creative process is one that is highly unknown and by its nature, volatile.
So instead of forcing people into an 8-9 hour shaped box, let them wander freely so that every hour they do spend working is one spent wisely. This experiment shows that instead of promoting apathy and time-wasting it improves productivity and creates a much warmer, friendly working atmosphere. Where all the time spent working is time people want to spend working.
On the subject of deadlines. Any employee who enjoys doing their job and can see value and in what they produce will be able to keep a deadline. Whether they are forced to do this from 8.30-5.30 is irrelevant.
I like your style 37 Signals. The world needs more people willing to not follow what is commonly called the ‘norm’. Keep it up!
Generator Land
on 16 Apr 08Jason, bless you for writing about this. I feel like my day jobs have always been built on urgency for urgency’s sake—schedule by arbitrary deadline. Most deadlines don’t hold up to scrutiny. The answer is usually something like, “well if we don’t have a deadline we worry it won’t get done” or “well I promised so and so it would be done by then.” To me this shows a lack of faith in your staff’s work ethic. If you tell one of your people to do something and you trust their abilities/self-management, you don’t need a hard deadline. All you need is “Next few days,” “next week,” etc. 9 times out of 10 they’ll surpass your expectations or give you a logical reason why they didn’t, usually a quality issue.
Obviously there are exceptions by project and by industry, but to me this is more of a philosophy than a hard rule. I’d just ask that you hold your deadlines up to scrutiny and ask “Wait a second, WHY is this urgent?”
Christian MacLean
on 16 Apr 08While I really agree with what you’re saying in a personal sense, and would love to put this into practice in my professional life, you do have to agree that your current situation has allowed you the flexibility to dictate terms to clients. But that’s great! I’d call that one of the big benefits of being successful, and I think people forget that. When you get to the spot that your ideals match your realities, I’d call that a pretty big success marker. If they don’t match – I’d call that a goal. See what I’m saying?
It’s easy for people to say ‘well it’s easy for you to preach from atop the mountain – that’s not my reality’. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, as a professional, and a parent – it’s that you can be, or have, anything you want, if you really truly have the strength and courage to pursue your goals. Want to work a 4 day work week? Then find a way to do it. Period. No excuses – lots of compromises and choices.
I would like to ask this though – in your book (and by your I mean 37 signals book ‘Getting Real’) you say ‘Set time and budget – flex scope’. Do you guys still believe in this? How do you find you balance a deadline, and a budget against what you’ve said has become your corporate culture?
CM
Nathan L. Walls
on 16 Apr 08@Anon
“Nope, there really is an empirical world. What we have is unique viewpoints, based on our personal histories. The notion that we can live in our own worlds indicates that your world is very insular, which is the exact point that the OC was making (that your viewpoint did not match an empirical world).”
Disagreement and unhappiness isn’t empiricism, though. Your experiences and viewpoints really only give you expertise in how you interact with the world. It isn’t that everyone you see things differently thanis insular, it’s that we all are.
Further, just because something is typically a particular way doesn’t mean at all it has to remain so.
“It’s a very 21st century, me-generation, post-modern viewpoint, so don’t feel bad, you’re not the only one expressing it.”
Exercising ownership of your own happiness, communicating effectively, taking responsibility for the outcomes and choosing interaction and business with others who do the same is a rare trait.
Here’s another way to put it. It’s like everyone used to sit at a desk with these manacles on their hands and feet. Turns out some folks saw there was a key to take them off. Turns out, you never had to put them on in the first place. It’s just what “everybody” did when they sat down.
And, as it happens, everyone has a key in front of them to take the shackles off. It’s just that “nobody” did.
Don’t blame the person who unshackled himself for leaving you bound. Find your own key and free yourself.
Anonymous Coward
on 16 Apr 08@Nathan The notion that we live in our own empirical worlds is indicative of an insular world-view. If I agreed that we live in our own world, it would make my view insular, even though it would express agreement, so I think I have you there.
Further, the notions that we can: ‘find freedom’, ‘exercise ownership .. of happiness’, and ‘choose interactions’ is again, the me-generation, post-modern illusion. Here’s why: it again espouses the belief that each of us can sit on our own mountaintops, controlling our happiness (exercising ownership), being free, etc.
This freedom doesn’t exist - people have tried to live this way before (the Romans and British come to mind) - and it isn’t freedom. It’s about higher degrees of choice making based on false visions of self-fulfillment and enlightenment. It’s the same lunacy that means that when you’ve reached the apex, feeling it’s not enough, you then have to learn about Kaballah in order to “really” find freedom.
Then maybe you stop looking for freedom, and start looking for the positive impact you can make on the world. Then life can really take off.
But make no mistakes, I want to get rich, have my cake, and eat it, too. Just, sometimes, I remember it’s a big game with no winners long term.
Payroll
on 16 Apr 08I worked in a payroll office for a large company. Servicing over 60 different departments. Two week pay schedule. 80% of the employees were hourly. Doesn’t get anymore deadline centric than that.
We were on 4-10 hour days. We did actually work the full 10 hours, impossible not too. Well, say 8.5.
But, having that extra day on the weekend made a huge difference, it made you forget about work, re-energized you and the first day back you were rar’ing to go again.
Jeff Putz
on 16 Apr 08“Finally, now that our protestant work ethic has finally started to devolve to decadence, we’ll surely make an easy target for India and Japan. China, too.”
Only we actually take fewer days off than they already do… http://money.cnn.com/2007/06/12/pf/vacation_days_worldwide/
Thanks for playing.
“Further, the notions that we can: ‘find freedom’, ‘exercise ownership .. of happiness’, and ‘choose interactions’ is again, the me-generation, post-modern illusion… Then maybe you stop looking for freedom, and start looking for the positive impact you can make on the world. Then life can really take off.”
Here’s the problem with what you’re saying… you assume these two states are mutually exclusive. That’s a lame way to live. No one here is suggesting that you can choose to sit around in a field of grass with puppies and sunshine and selfishly live life as a functional part of society. I mean, isn’t this whole topic about work in the first place? The 37signals cats are having that positive impact, and doing it their way. That’s the point.
There is freedom in following your bliss, whether you take 60 or 10 hours a week to do it.
Nathan Pitman
on 16 Apr 08So what hours do you guys work on an average day?
Amanda Coggin
on 16 Apr 08I’m so thrilled to see this. Four years ago, I knew I had a book in me. I earned a decent salary, but didn’t live a lavish lifestyle. I had an incredible mentor for a boss and knew the only way I would get that book written was to take time out of my life to do it. While most asked for raises and promotions, I asked him for one day a week to write. Working four days a week was a dream. I opted for Mondays off, which was the best day because everyone is harried on Mondays. Co-workers knew that they had to reach me on those other days and I worked more efficiently and enjoyed my job more because of my 30+ hour work week. I believe it’s better for stress/health/a well-balanced life and should be an option for all workers in the future.
Anon
on 16 Apr 08@Putz We currently take off fewer days than they do, but that’s because the trends I’m spotting are emerging and limited to the elite (for now), not the immigrant humping two shifts. By my calculations the 37S staff is taking off at least 52 days a year.
Now to your broader point, which is that we don’t have to worry about overseas competition. I agree, because we are and will continue to offset our actual labor with cheaper labor which we will continue to import.
And, further, the two states are mutually exclusive as presented by Nathan and others: let me explain. If you accept as a premise that you can control life, you are accepting a false premise. Hence, controlling your happiness is impossible. What you are really doing when you “exercise control” is you are exerting force. When you exert a lot of force over time, it can take awhile for the counter-forces to emerge.
And our notion of controlling happiness is such a large force, that the counter forces are truly frightening—global warming, nuclear apocalypse, famine.
All thanks to the 37S staff. Thanks a lot guys…
Shawn Oster
on 16 Apr 08I’m curious how this works for those that really get into projects and want to work more than the 4 days?
Personally I work in spurts, I greatly enjoy working 12 – 14 hour days for two to three weeks and then just check out for a week with the wife or do very light 2-3 hour days. I’m lucky enough to have finally trained my company that I’m most productive that way. For awhile they tried to force me into an 8-to-5 but I then worked exactly 8 hours and was pretty damn worthless most of the time.
I think the 4-day work week experiment is great, anything that challanges the basic 8-to-5, 40 hour, punch the clock mentality is a step in the right direction in my book.
Jeff Putz
on 16 Apr 08My point was never that we don’t have to worry about overseas competition. Where the hell would you get that idea? They’ve already got us beat in most industries. That ship sailed. And they’re taking more vacation than us.
Your nebulous comments about force are silly. Life doesn’t just happen to you unless you’re content to roll that way. I control the things I can, and don’t fret over the things I can’t. I will, in fact, die eventually, as soon as tomorrow or decades from now. Isn’t that incentive enough to control the things you can?
False premise indeed.
Nathan L. Walls
on 17 Apr 08@Anon
“If you accept as a premise that you can control life, you are accepting a false premise. Hence, controlling your happiness is impossible. What you are really doing when you ‘exercise control’ is you are exerting force. When you exert a lot of force over time, it can take awhile for the counter-forces to emerge.”
“Control” and “force,” particularly force as control aren’t germane to the point I was attempting to make. I’m talking about responsibility more than anything else. The premise being that no one is is responsible for me but me. Not McDonalds, not Philip-Morris, not Microsoft, not my friends. Me.
Very directly, I have the choice to stop doing things I don’t like doing, not start doing them at all or make no changes at all. I have the choice to keep doing the things I like doing. I can redefine what I like and what I don’t. I don’t expect that other people won’t disagree with me.
What is in my purview is to 1) determine what I want to do and how, 2) set the expectations with whomever accordingly, 3) communicate changes early, not late, 4) expect to be treated equitably and 5) change the situation if/when it isn’t what I want it to be. It’s true for individuals and companies.
There are no guarantees that every moment will be blissful. Pets die, a favorite band puts out a shitty record, etc. But if I’m unhappy with how my career is going, or how my customers treat my company, I don’t have to live with it. It’s also nobody else’s job to fix that. It’s mine.
Anon
on 17 Apr 08I like these debates. They’re fun.
Oh Putz Labeling my argument as silly, is itself a weak argument, if one at all. Certainly not worth continuing. Have a nice day.
@Nathan—I agree. Choice most definitely exists. But it is a choice of action, not of effect. I think we agree on this point.
Shawn
on 17 Apr 08Congratulations on all your achievements! Now if you can put a date next to a milestone at all times in Basecamp you will have really done a wonderful thing!!! :^)
Shawn
on 17 Apr 08Someday someone will compete with basecamp, offer a product slightly cheaper, with slightly better features, and then you will see why its not possible to sit around and scratch yourself for half the week and work when you feel like it. Forget about trying dictate to the customer what is they should expect. The customer will come to you and say, company x does this at this price, can you match? And when you say no thats it, you lose money.
Anon
on 17 Apr 08True Shawn, though I would be surprised if 37S didn’t have stealth projects going on…
Chris Cranley
on 17 Apr 08I love the urgency insight. Your company provides many compelling business services and I hope your expirements with the 4 day work week prove fruitful!
I have echoed your urgency insight in a recent blogging post – but from a different angle. Check out Running lessons for Running Business here: http://www.hirechriscranley.com/2008/04/16/businessrunning/
Amy
on 17 Apr 08Admittedly, I didn’t read every comment, so perhaps this has been addressed…
I wonder how this sort of attitude toward hours worked vs. goals achieved would pan out in a consulting environment. As an accountant/consultant, there is so much pressure for “billable” hours – meaning, what can we charge the client with.
In my industry, everything comes down to “how much did we get paid for this project, and how much did we pay the people who did the work?” It all seems to be about the bottom line.
I, for one, would feel much better about my job (and be much more focused and productive) if I knew that all I had to concern myself w/ is doing my job well and in a timely fashion, rather than constantly being hounded for how many hours I “billed” this week…
Ian
on 18 Apr 08So what’s the golden ratio? Have you tried a 3-day week? 3.5? 4.5?
Court
on 20 Apr 08Everybody’s different. You try and get some of our engineers and designers off their work for 3 days a week, and you’ll see some very unhappy engineers. Youll also see some happy ones. There’s no golden ratio of work to play. You’ll have better luck finding the Fountain of Youth.
joypog
on 21 Apr 08@Daniel Tenner As an architect myself, I just had to bring up the point that unlike what you see from the outside, morale in the profession is incredibly low due to the long hours and low pay. If architecture “opened the kimono” a bit you’d be horrified. The fact that bldgs don’t crash down doesn’t mean that sh!t isn’t going down hard, especially if you look at buildings over time.
but like 37signals seems to be pointing out, if your business model is relying on long hours and low pay, then something’s wrong and something is certainly wrong in architecture—especially in the top big brand name big time firms.
Melissa Pierce
on 21 Apr 08Hehe – the comments here read like an us vs them battle. Oh so exciting, and tedious. As a creatives coach, I get that people in more creative fields need a bit more flexibility in their schedule in order to be more productive, this doesn’t negate the importance of deadlines as many of you imply, it just means that the time line is structured differently. For instance, an entrepreneurial web designer may be able to push out a decent website in 30hrs, however, by building in an extra 10hrs of “recharging” time, the product is far superior. The mix-up in some of the comments above is that the writers assume that these “adjustments in the time line” are made post promised delivery time, and while I’m sure this happens some of the time, most creative professionals that have embraced the concept of time leveraging have built their work schedule in a way that gets the job done on time as promised. Does it really matter if there is a pingpong table in the office, as long as the work gets done?
This discussion is closed.