Some hours are worth more than others
When you were at school, did your teacher ever let you finish early at the end of the day?
I can still remember the excitement and pure joy of gaining back a few minutes of my own precious time. A few extra moments to do what I wanted to do. A little less work, a little more time with my friends.
Starting work late, or finishing early feels magical because the minutes and hours at the start and the end of the working day are simply worth more.
Starting work at 9:30 am, rather than 8 am gives you time to:
- relax and enjoy a cup of coffee in your dressing gown
- make a homemade lunch for you and your kids
- have breakfast with your family
- walk the dog
- kiss your wife and tell her how much you love her
- take a cold shower
- walk the kids to school
- stop and chat with your kid's teacher
- pause and admire some new flowers in your garden
The possibilities are endless. You can fit a lot of life into 90 minutes.
If you finish at 3:30 pm, instead of 5:00 pm, you can:
- stop and see a friend on the way home
- pick your kids up earlier
- kick a ball at the park
- take them to that sports practice yourself
- make a home-cooked dinner
- eat dinner together with your family
- play hide and seek, build some lego, do some colouring
- water your garden
- or just sit a chill for a bit because you deserve it.
I think I've made my point.
You can also achieve a lot in a long lunch break, but it's not the same. The marginal hours at the beginning and end of the day are when the family magic happens.
Do we want our kids to grow up with us? Or waiting for us to come home?
Those marginal hours are the most valuable hours.
The world currently demands that we give up our marginal hours to the social construct of a 40-hour working week (I realise it's 37.5 but let's keep things simple). Add in a 1-hour commute each way and you're talking 50 hours away from loved ones.
Why not take back some of those marginal hours and invest them in what matters most - our relationships with the people we love?
Why not have a 32-hour working week? Or 25?
Sadly, for many of us, 40 hours is a pipe dream in itself. Due to working demands and the pressure of a high-performance job, the better we get at what we do, the more we are needed. Before you know it, the 40-hour week becomes the 50, sometimes 60-hour week!!
It doesn't have to be like this. We can choose not to fall in line with social constructs that we never agreed to in the first place. We can buck the trend and prioritise our mental, personal and relational health.