3️⃣ recurring work resolutions that all of us should take heed of in 2023 and beyond:

🥇EMBRACE TIME AS A SCARCE RESOURCE⏳️

If you treat time as the scarce, precious resource that it is, your work will be more efficient and productive, and your life will be more balanced and fulfilling.

🥈PRIORITIZATION IS KEY TO EFFICIENCY AND ACHIEVEMENT🏆

If you get better at prioritizing at work, you will set yourself up to achieve your goals outside of work. Regarding everything as a priority will inevitably lead to a creep effect where your work eats into your time off more and more.

🥉SET BETTER BOUNDARIES 🔕

Not just between work and life, but between focused work and ‘on demand’ work. Appreciate the value of time to ‘switch off’ and recharge outside of work, as well as the value of being ‘switched on’ to important tasks free of interruption while at work.

All of us, myself included, can strive to do a better job of these 3 things individually. Being more deliberate with your time is a good creed to work by. 🕙

But for truly transformative, long-lasting change, this needs to be a collective endeavour in workplaces, that really attacks the key company-wide drivers of wasteful inefficiency, missed opportunity and unfulfilled potential.

As individuals, we don’t have the agency to change the way we do business more fundamentally without a structured approach. No one of us can resolve to do meetings differently, manage distractions differently, reform organizational processes, or use technology more mindfully on our own. That requires a team-wide effort.👬👫👭

That’s where a Work Time Reduction shorter working week change project comes in. 🚧

Working in the business of organizational change offers a constant window into reinvention. I’m fortunate to have had the opportunity to learn from many inspiring and innovative leaders throughout 2022. 💡

In 2023, I’m looking forward to helping more and more organizations rethink their processes, practices, culture and mindset, to transform the way they work and change the lives of their people. 2️⃣0️⃣2️⃣3️⃣

One of the biggest misconceptions about the shorter working week is that it is a one-size fits all, rigid model based around Thursday being the new Friday. In fact, that couldn’t be further from the truth. 🤥

Although average working hours decreased by 6 hours on average in the recent #4DayWeek global trial results, less than half of the companies that took part adopted a model where all employees took Friday off. 🤔

This model, where feasible, has a lot of upside. Having a single universal day off maximizes the availability of your team for internal collaboration and team-working, and having a three-day weekend maximizes the benefit of extra time for rest and recuperation. However, it won’t work for everyone, particularly those in customer-facing, availability-dependent roles. ☎️

Not only does the appropriate schedule depend on your business and your industry, it might even depend on what department of the business you are in. 👨‍💼👩‍💼

Not everyone can afford to take Fridays off. But the vast majority of businesses have the productive capacity and technological tools at their disposal to start working smarter, and start working less. And many can achieve a four-day week by taking a creative approach to scheduling, prioritization and resource demand. 💡

For those that aren’t quite there yet, there are improvements to processes and changes to work practices that can help their business become more efficient, and give their people, who often might be regularly overworking their contracted #workinghours, some of their time back. 🕓👍

And lots of businesses in between are experimenting with everything from 9-day fortnights, to shorter work days, to treating Fridays as a half-day, a ‘flex’ or ‘freedom’ day with no meetings or fixed work commitments, or a day off in the summer. ☀️

Often this is a step in the right direction to a four-day week, and sometimes it might be the final destination. 🗺📍

It doesn’t matter where you are on your journey. We at the Work Time Reduction can help you on the road to work time reduction. 🚸

In every political campaign headquarters all over the world, special advisors and strategists are working to find new and innovative ways to increase voter turnout. But where do the voters go then? Do they stay involved in the campaign? Do they know the battles fought to deliver what was promised, or the details of why it wasn’t possible this time? 

People’s association with organizations that purport to represent their interests – political parties, trade unions, religious institutions, and community-based organizations are at historic lows, as is their trust in government institutions. 

Political engagement is a principle, not a hobby

A robust democracy depends on a strong turn-out at elections. However, without participation beyond election time by citizens in political decisions, through consultation, citizens’ panels and forums, and extended deliberative dialogue, the electorate feel totally detached. Low levels of participation have a lot to do with cynicism about the political process, but long hours in paid employment add to the disincentives and help to create a vicious cycle of disengagement.

A report prepared for the Ford Foundation by Hahrie Han a political science professor at the University of California, sets out a framework for how people can participate in the political process in ways that build their sense of agency and encourage further participation:

Means to engage. People must be able to participate. We need to remove barriers to participation and implement policies and procedures that make it easier for people to vote. 

Motivated to engage. People must want to participate. It’s not enough for voting to be easy; people have to want to take part.

Meaningful engagement. People must feel their participation actually matters. It must have a tangible impact on policy decisions, and improve people’s lives.

Democracy takes time

Learning about political issues, getting involved in decision-making, joining and supporting political parties, campaigning and voting all take time. 

Those who work 40+ hour weeks, participate in family life, social life and take part in a hobby, simply do not have time to engage in their communities in a meaningful way without feeling like they have to sacrifice something else.

Freeing up time for participation will enrich civil society, strengthen democratic processes, and make it easier for voters to hold politicians to account.