
Why the 9 to 5 workday is tough on creative workers (2013) - cdvonstinkpot
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2013/12/why-the-9-to-5-day-is-so-tough-on-creative-workers/282331/?single_page=true
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JSeymourATL
_It’s been about a century since the economist John Maynard Keynes first
touted the six-hour workday, predicting that by 2030 only extreme workaholics
would work more than 15 hours a week._ Still waiting for flying cars too.

~~~
snarf21
It is generally held that this is because of a rapid change in standard of
living. If we were willing to live with less, we could have a job of only 15
hours a week. It would be interesting to compare standard of living to today
and estimate how many hours would be required to meet the old levels.

~~~
iza
Nothing to do with the standard of living, it's about exploiting as much
surplus value from the workers as possible.

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xeromal
A century again. People didn't have cell phones, cell phone plans, TV,
internet, computers, high-end cars, student loans, and other luxuries. All
that is at least an additional 12,000 USD a year.

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bishopknight
I don't agree that cognition is best during the afternoon. I have my best
concentration and work effort from 9-noon.

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pc86
I think at least part of this is age and habit. In college my best period of
concentration and work was roughly 11-3 or so. I was also ~20 years old and
had trouble going to bed before midnight or waking up before 9.

A decade later and after military service the lion's share of my day job work
is done between 7 and 10 in the morning, and it's rare that I'm not up,
dressed and showered by 6:30am or asleep by 10pm.

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marssaxman
Individual experiences vary widely; I am 41 now and still have just as much
trouble going to bed before midnight or waking up before 9 as I did in my 20s.
It still takes effort to restrain my impulse to stay up all night, in fact,
whenever there's something remotely interesting or creative I could be working
on instead of sleeping. It is not simply a matter of habits, either; I spent
most of seven years getting up in time for a 7 AM conference call every work
day, and it never got any easier. As soon as that was over, I went right back
to my old schedule.

Perhaps it's less of a struggle to fit my life into normal business hours now,
after years of experience trying to do it, but that's really just a matter of
coping skills; my body clock remains as stubbornly nocturnal as it has ever
been.

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thriftwy
Creative workers as a group would definitely do something about this if they
were concerned so much.

Software developers mostly work noon to 8PM where I live. Go figure.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Interesting that you separate creative work from software development.

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untilHellbanned
Constraints like time are a forcing function. They aren't necessarily good or
bad. You could argue many creations wouldn't have happened had someone not
been stuck in a job they created something to liberate themselves from.

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cygned
The linked study about when to sleep is on ReasearchGate and can be found via
your search engine of preference.

(Not linking directly because I am not sure if that page is legal, Taylor &
Francis Online charges for access).

~~~
sammoorhouse
> (Not linking directly because I am not sure if that page is legal, Taylor &
> Francis Online charges for access).

Obviously you don’t owe anyone an explanation, but do you mind discussing your
objective here? Is it to make it harder for someone to find the study? Or you
don’t want to promote the page by linking to it? Are you worried you’d be
breaking the law by adding a direct link? What are your thoughts on the legal
vs moral impact of the study being publicly available?

I don’t have an agenda, it’s just clear you’ve put some thought into the whole
thing. Cheers.

~~~
cygned
Thanks for asking! The thread's article links to NCBI which links to Taylor &
Francis providing the paper. They charge for access to it, though. As I was
interested in reading it, I searched for it on Google and found it on the
aforementioned ReasearchGate site, accessible for free.

As I was not sure if free access to it is legal but I also wanted to enable
others to find it, I named the name of the page allowing everyone with the
paper's name to find it, without getting into trouble because of linking to it
directly.

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bricss
Indeed.

