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I have worked less than 40 hours a week (and more as well).
My entertainment spending in both scenarios says this is complete horsecrap.
During Covid times I had the chance to work 6 hours a day (for the same pay) and boy did things change in everyone's life. People were clearly happier and more productive. Even my then manager agreed that it allowed for a significant improvement in work/life balance.
Unsurprisingly, everything went back to normal when it was over.
My big realization over the years working from home (both pre and post pandemic), with teams in differen time zones and with different types of workdays is that there just isn't a single best answer. Things change person to person as well as over time.
But yeah, working fewer hours a week honestly didn't impact productivity much at all, and moving the hours from a single chunk to mostly working at the right times for each type of task made things more sustainable. You can't always be flexible about this on every position, but when you can I genuinely think it can get you to where you want to go faster and more reliably to be loose and align with specific needs.
There is a single best answer. 40 hours of work is too much given other responsibilities and compankes should be required to pay overtime when someone works over 32 hours.
Women in the workforce means most workers don't have a fulltime childcare assistant cook cleaner at home anymore and the hours per week at work has not adjusted accordingly.
When covid hit they cut my hours to 32 a week. They wouldn't let us do a four day work week which was kind of lame, but instead we got four 7-hour days then a 4-hour half-day on Friday. It doesn't sound like a lot but even an extra hour in the evenings and an early start to the weekend turned out to be really refreshing. When things went back to normal, I asked if I could keep that schedule even with the 20% pay cut, but they said no.
Unfortunately, it seems that there simply aren't a lot of white collar type office jobs where you can work for less than the standard 40 hours a week while keeping the same hourly rate and similar benefits.
I think it also depends on where you are in life. Way back when I was single, living along and with little to no responsibilities doing 40 hours wasn't an issue. I would wake up at 6, hit the gym, do 8 hours of work, pickup takeaway, eat and then I pretty much have the rest of the day free (minus the occasional chore).
I lived close to work so daily commute time was 1 hour, gym and takeaway places were on the route. Add in 1 hour in the gym and after work, commute and gym I still had 6 hours of free time with 8 hours of sleep.
Now I do 32 hours a week and I don't commute, but I have a family. Even with reduced workload I get 2-3 hours of personal time. ~1 hour comes from reduced workload and 1 hour comes from less sleep and the last hour comes from not hitting the gym. If I lived like I used to I'd have no free time and I'd have to make even more compromises about my time just to have some personal time. And let's face it, working remotely means I definitely don't spend the entire 6 or 6.5 hours on work. I have so many other responsibilities that doing less work is absolutely having an impact on my life and well-being.
I can't fathom how people with families can do full 40 hours and find time to spend with their kids and find time to for self. I think they probably don't find all that time. I think they're compromising where they can and that mostly happens with themselves and their children, work is not compromised.
Look, I'm happy for you, but I've never had it in me to do any of that. Single, young, whatever. I had the energy to stop for a drink on the way back home, at best. On a good day.