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The Five-Hour Workday: Live Differently, Unlock Productivity, and Find Happiness
A century ago, Henry Ford saw a sea change in worker productivity. It was the industrial revolution. Where others saw only more profits, Ford had a much grander vision.
He invented the eight-hour workday, cut his employees' workdays nearly in half and doubled their pay. Productivity and profitability soared. By giving more to his workers, he changed the quality of life of an entire nation.
Today, we're in the midst of a massive productivity shift for knowledge workers. And yet, the eight-hour workday hasn't changed.
Until now, that is.
This book is about one company that simply asked why. A company that had the courage to try an experiment, toward re-inventing a more sensible, productive, and healthy workday for today's knowledge workers. That company is Tower Paddle Boards, one of the fastest-growing companies in the nation, and one of Mark Cuban's best Shark Tank investments.
In this book, you’ll learn how the five-hour
• Improves business operations, efficiency, and profitability
• Attracts the brightest minds, the hardest workers, and the best performers
• Stimulates employee performance and increases retention rates
• Can be implemented and tested at your company, temporarily and without risk
• Can change your life into something better than you ever imagined possible
He invented the eight-hour workday, cut his employees' workdays nearly in half and doubled their pay. Productivity and profitability soared. By giving more to his workers, he changed the quality of life of an entire nation.
Today, we're in the midst of a massive productivity shift for knowledge workers. And yet, the eight-hour workday hasn't changed.
Until now, that is.
This book is about one company that simply asked why. A company that had the courage to try an experiment, toward re-inventing a more sensible, productive, and healthy workday for today's knowledge workers. That company is Tower Paddle Boards, one of the fastest-growing companies in the nation, and one of Mark Cuban's best Shark Tank investments.
In this book, you’ll learn how the five-hour
• Improves business operations, efficiency, and profitability
• Attracts the brightest minds, the hardest workers, and the best performers
• Stimulates employee performance and increases retention rates
• Can be implemented and tested at your company, temporarily and without risk
• Can change your life into something better than you ever imagined possible
289 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 9, 2016
85 people are currently reading
436 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
May 1, 2019
Whether or not you get to actually do a 5-hour work day, this book inspired me to change the way I approach work. It is so easy to get into the idea of a 9-5 mandatory drudgery, but since reading this book, I requested a work schedule change to 8:00-4:00, but also just approach work differently. I don't want to leave work having had a bad, unproductive day, so I've made changes not only in when I work, but how I work. Definitely worth the read.
June 20, 2021
As a productivity and efficiency evangelist, I am all about streamlining. I also think the 40-hour workweek is arbitrary and Stephan Aarstol proves that it is! It all started with ONE man, Henry Ford, who wanted to reduce his workers' hours while increasing their pay...to ultimately have the time and money to buy cars. These were mostly manufacturing jobs. Expecting knowledge workers to work these hours has evolved over the years to people clocking 50-60 hour weeks, which increased during COVID and working remotely.
Aarstol gives a solid reason for working five-hour days, yet is also realistic that it isn't for everyone. We've gone to 'no-task' Fridays where we don't assign deliverables to each other on a Friday. I'm inspired by this book and am on a quest to make this happen on more days than not within a year.
Aarstol gives a solid reason for working five-hour days, yet is also realistic that it isn't for everyone. We've gone to 'no-task' Fridays where we don't assign deliverables to each other on a Friday. I'm inspired by this book and am on a quest to make this happen on more days than not within a year.
December 18, 2022
Compelling idea, extremely repetitive
December 23, 2020
Interesting topic. I liked the historical overview, and the elaboration of why 5-hours per day makes sense. Also, thanks for trying this experiment, and sharing the outcomes.
There are two things at the end that, in my opinion, don’t go with the rest of the story:
- firing unproductive people and replacing them with more productive people. It made me think of a TED video: Margaret Heffernan: Forget the pecking order at work https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_he...
In short: relying on only superproductive star employees doesn’t make a great team.
- making publicity for the 5-hour work day, and explaining that you make a little less money over a year, but you make more per hour. Only to explain in the end that sometimes 60-hour weeks will be necessary. Also people need to plan their doctor appointments outside of working hours? When you have a sick child, my doctor always told me you can’t wait till the afternoon. You need to come early in the morning. I definitely hope that this doesn’t mean your people get fired when they need to see a doctor in the morning.
Sometimes there was some repetition and I must say I saw more typos/ wrong spelled words than I would expect from a book. Maybe you can iron these out for a future release?
Anyway, happy to have read it. The title/idea made me buy the book. And it is great food for though. Thanks!
There are two things at the end that, in my opinion, don’t go with the rest of the story:
- firing unproductive people and replacing them with more productive people. It made me think of a TED video: Margaret Heffernan: Forget the pecking order at work https://www.ted.com/talks/margaret_he...
In short: relying on only superproductive star employees doesn’t make a great team.
- making publicity for the 5-hour work day, and explaining that you make a little less money over a year, but you make more per hour. Only to explain in the end that sometimes 60-hour weeks will be necessary. Also people need to plan their doctor appointments outside of working hours? When you have a sick child, my doctor always told me you can’t wait till the afternoon. You need to come early in the morning. I definitely hope that this doesn’t mean your people get fired when they need to see a doctor in the morning.
Sometimes there was some repetition and I must say I saw more typos/ wrong spelled words than I would expect from a book. Maybe you can iron these out for a future release?
Anyway, happy to have read it. The title/idea made me buy the book. And it is great food for though. Thanks!
November 30, 2018
Read 50%, Skimmed 50%. The big idea of the book is that shortening the workday (as opposed to shortening the workweek) is the optimal method for knowledge workers to maximize productivity and happiness. The author is the founder of Tower Paddleboards. I own 2 of their boards, they are awesome boards! The book came free with my boards. It's a nice look at why it makes business sense to move to shorter workweeks (while keeping pay constant). The book goes into specifics about how the author manages his company schedule at Tower and how he managed the transition from a 40-hour week to a ~20 hour week. A big part of the book is about the history of work, how we got ourselves into an overworked culture and how tech can help us get out of it. If you enjoyed Tim Ferris's "The Four Hour Workweek" you will enjoy this book. I enjoyed the book but was very familiar with the concepts shared and at times the book felt repetitive or not relevant to my situation - thus the 2-star rating and my frequent skimming through chapters. Oh yeah, I did really finish it in a couple hours.
February 14, 2020
Disclaimer: Do not read on the train to your 9-5 job. All these ideas make sense, work shorter hours with the same amount of productivity means finding ways to be the most effective with your time. Hopefully people in charge of large companies will start seeing the benefit this can provide to not only employees but the institutions they work for as well. I look forward to the day that most companies consider this lifestyle change for their currently overworked employees.
April 21, 2020
Great concepts but light on tactical information regarding how to implement it in one's own workplace (if an owner) or in one's own work (if an employee or contractor). Furthermore, limited suggestions provided to services based business who charge hourly. Options for these businesses exist (increase the annual recurring revenue by clipping ticket on software licences or moving into product sales) but these are not explored.
September 12, 2018
Inspiring!
November 3, 2018
The history of work wasn't as interesting as the parts about the actual concept.
February 18, 2024
Moral of the story:
Trading money for time >>> Trading time for money
Was also interesting learning about the history of the 8-hour workday
Trading money for time >>> Trading time for money
Was also interesting learning about the history of the 8-hour workday
Read
September 21, 2022Here are some thoughts on this book:
- Like so many nonfiction, self-helpy books, the message could have been conveyed in 10 pages vs. 250+.
- Basically, he is not really advocating a 5-hour workday, as he admits that many times people may need to work more than that or want to work more than that. He is really just advocating a salaried job in which you are paid for your production rather than your time.
- I generally appreciate the sentiment that we shouldn't have to be defined by our work and that it can be mind-numbing and counter-productive to work by the hour.
- But I found myself a bit irritated throughout, as this book is really geared only for "individual workers, freelancers, and entrepreneurs." For this group of people, it can perhaps be helpful and applicable. For those outside of the adults that go to summer camp set, the book can come across as self-satisfied and clueless about how it might be for everyone else or that people who live a five hour workday live on the backs of many people who support them with much less glamorous jobs. The page on income inequality is maddening. So overall, I appreciated the general idea of the book but found its application to be only for a very privileged group of people.
- Like so many nonfiction, self-helpy books, the message could have been conveyed in 10 pages vs. 250+.
- Basically, he is not really advocating a 5-hour workday, as he admits that many times people may need to work more than that or want to work more than that. He is really just advocating a salaried job in which you are paid for your production rather than your time.
- I generally appreciate the sentiment that we shouldn't have to be defined by our work and that it can be mind-numbing and counter-productive to work by the hour.
- But I found myself a bit irritated throughout, as this book is really geared only for "individual workers, freelancers, and entrepreneurs." For this group of people, it can perhaps be helpful and applicable. For those outside of the adults that go to summer camp set, the book can come across as self-satisfied and clueless about how it might be for everyone else or that people who live a five hour workday live on the backs of many people who support them with much less glamorous jobs. The page on income inequality is maddening. So overall, I appreciated the general idea of the book but found its application to be only for a very privileged group of people.
April 13, 2017
Having worked my share of jobs where I'm just putting in the hours and living for the weekend, the company culture outlined in this book is like a breath of fresh air. Very exciting stuff! Now my challenge will be to implement these principles into the world of engineering.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews