The Most Productive Workers Spend 2H on Breaks Daily – That’s Equal to a 4-Day Workweek

Recently, the 4-day workweek has become the topic of heated debate worldwide. Large-scale trials suggest positive impacts on employee productivity. Understandably, there's also ample pushback, headlined by worries about the negative effects on a company's bottom line.

But the question at the heart of it all is quite simple – do gains in productivity justify fewer hours worked?

There's no single answer. For some sectors, particularly those dominated by manual labor, this is unlikely to ever be the case.

For others, such as those that primarily involve knowledge workers, things aren't as clear cut, and 4-day workweeks may indeed offer a way to rejuvenate stagnant processes, improve employee morale, and dramatically boost productivity.

Regardless of where you sit on this issue, one thing is clear and has been repeatedly proven by study after study – a healthy work-life balance improves performance at work.

And while a 4-day workweek might be a drastic step toward squeezing this equation for all its worth, it's certainly not the only way to rebalance workloads for heightened productivity.

The results of a recent study may reframe the issue in less dramatic terms and help business owners look at the 4-day workweek debate from a different perspective.

The Secret of the Most Productive Workers

My company DeskTime is a productivity and time-tracking app with over 475,000 users worldwide, of which more than 150,000 are based in India.

In an effort to unearth the secrets of top performers, we analyzed the top 10% of most productive users in India, looking for patterns and similarities among these employees.

Here's what we discovered – the most productive workers spend, on average, 1 hour and 56 minutes every day on breaks, including lunch breaks.

That's nearly two hours a day, which, over the span of a typical workweek, adds up to almost an entire 8-hour day. In a way, it's like the most productive people are already working 4-day workweeks.

What Do These Results Mean?

For one, they highlight the importance of taking breaks for optimal performance. It has long been demonstrated that regular breaks improve productivity by refreshing your attention span and keeping cognitive boredom at bay.

In fact, working in bursts is another secret of the most productive people.

But, more importantly for our discussion, the results of the study shine a light on the essence of the 4-day workweek debate – it's not about working less, but about working more effectively, and those up in arms regarding fewer hours worked are misunderstanding the problem.

We SHOULD be working less if it leads to better results. The real question is – how do we go about that?

Yes, the 4-day workweek is one option. However, if it's implemented by sacrificing break time, then it may have a counterproductive effect, as the quality of work is likely to drop when people try to squeeze five days of work into four.

After all, even with 4-day workweeks, breaks will be just as important.

The other option is to focus on the breaks themselves – to consciously take advantage of the benefits they confer on productivity, efficiency, and mental health by instilling a 'break culture' in your organization.

How to Introduce a 'Break Culture' in Your Company

The key word here is culture. Not system, not strategy, not rule – culture. You should not force mandatory break times, as we all work at different paces, and you risk doing more harm than good.

The change must be organic and one of attitude, but, to happen, it still requires a targeted effort, which includes but is not limited to, the following 4 steps:

1. Ensure everyone knows it's OK, even recommended, to take breaks – Talk about breaks openly, share ways of decompressing, and create welcoming environments where employees can step away from the daily toil.

   
   

2. Lead by example – You cannot expect from others what you don't practice yourself, so leaders must show employees how it's done. Set the tone, invite people to take a breather, and openly share any benefits you personally experience from taking breaks.

   
   

3. Show appreciation for results, not hours worked – Working long hours is often seen as a way to gain recognition from management. Make sure people know that results are what you value above all, and recognize strong performers.

   
   

4. Don't punish good employees with more work – People perform better because they have the room to do so. If you fill up their time with more responsibilities just because they're doing a great job staying on top of their existing ones, then you'll deter them and others from performing at their best.

Find Your Balance

The main argument of 4-day workweek proponents is that improved work-life balance leads to better results. This argument is demonstrably true, and DeskTime's recent discovery that the most productive workers in India spend nearly 2 hours a day taking breaks corroborates this.

But that doesn't mean that a 4-day workweek is the only way to achieve these improvements.

If your company is able to afford shortened workweeks, then great! It will undoubtedly be a boon for productivity and recruitment. But, if it can't – you may still reap the benefits with incremental steps, and the first is to normalize a culture of taking breaks.