8-hour working days just aren’t feasible anymore… apparently

Alert your boss, ASAP.

Back in the day, people used to work up to 15 hours a day. You'd get up, go to work, probably eat a sandwich sometime throughout the day, go home, and go to sleep. It was a pretty grim time but sure look, nobody knew any different. These days, some people are still forced to work 15 hour day for various reasons, but across the board, the general consensus tends to be that eight hours is the standard and most places should adhere to that. The ol' 9-5 might be a hassle, but it's what most of us are used to so we get on with it. As it turns out though, working for eight hours a day with a break in the middle probably isn't the most efficient way of doing things. Because, as we all know, spending more hours in work doesn't necessarily equal more work being done. There have been plenty of studies and theories over the past few years to prove this, but one that really sticks out is Dr Travis Bradberry's. He took to LinkedIn to share his ideal work-to-rest ratio and it's a bit different to what we've all been used to for our working lives. Bradberry said:

"The ideal work-to-break ratio was 52 minutes of work, followed by 17 minutes of rest. "People who maintained this schedule had a unique level of focus in their work."

We mean, this sounds absolutely delicious and we are 100 percent willing to try it. Bradberry's theory makes sense too. Think about all the times you've opted to stay late in work, only to find that you're exhausted, wrecked, and completely bet - essentially unable to do what you wanted to do in a short space of time because you've been there for so long. Breaks are good, they leave us refreshed and ready to tackle projects with a new vigour that probably wouldn't have been there if we'd been sitting at our desks all day. We just don't know how willing our bosses will be to implement this change. Sure, all we can do is ask.