A recent study by DeskTime, a productivity tracking software, revealed something that should make every employer rethink how we work, the top 10% most productive employees aren’t glued to their screens for 8 hours straight. In fact, they take almost two and a half hours of rest throughout their workday.
Let’s do the math. If the workday is 8 hours long, and 2.5 hours are spent on breaks, only 5.5 hours are actually spent working and these are the most productive employees. If that’s the benchmark for high performance, why are we still supporting the 5-day workweek?
Rest Isn’t Wasted Time, It’s How We Get Work Done
First, let’s be clear: these breaks aren’t about laziness. They’re strategic. The study found that top performers followed a 75/33 ratio, working for 75 minutes, then taking a 33-minute break. This isn’t procrastination; it’s intentional recovery.
Our brains are not machines that can function at full capacity all day. Focus, creativity, and problem solving all degrade over time without rest. These pauses, whether it’s stepping outside, chatting with a friend, or even just zoning out, are part of how we stay sharp.
So rather than judging productivity by hours spent staring at a screen, we should be asking: how effective are those hours?
The Workweek is Already Shrinking in Practice
What this study reveals is that even during a traditional 8-hour day, workers are self adjusting their schedules for better productivity. And they’re doing it without official policies or management nudging them. It’s human instinct.
Now imagine compressing that real working time, roughly 5.5 hours a day into fewer days.
Five days of 5.5 hours equals 27.5 hours of actual work per week. Spread that over four days and you get roughly 7 hours per day, well within reach for most workers. The work doesn’t suffer. People just spend less time pretending to be busy.
The 4-Day Workweek Isn’t Radical It’s Rational
We’ve already seen success stories from companies and countries that trialed the 4-day week. In the UK’s recent large-scale pilot, 92% of participating companies stuck with the model. Why? Because productivity remained the same or even improved, while employees reported better mental health, fewer sick days, and higher job satisfaction.
This isn’t about cramming five days of work into four. It’s about eliminating the fluff, the filler, and the burnout. If we’re already taking 2.5 hours of rest per day to stay productive, isn’t it more efficient to officially build that into our schedules instead of disguising it as idle time?
Trust and Outcomes
A 4 day week also signals trust. It says, “We care more about what you accomplish than how long you sit at your desk.” That’s a radical shift for traditional office culture, but a much needed one.
People don’t want to work less just to slack off. They want time to live, to take care of their families, to rest, to explore hobbies. Ironically, when people are more rested and fulfilled, they do better work.
The DeskTime study isn’t an anomaly. It’s more proof that we’ve been measuring productivity wrong all along. The real productivity boosters, rest, autonomy, and flexibility, don’t come from pushing people to work longer. They come from working smarter and respecting human limits.
We’re already living in a 5.5-hour workday world. The data says it. Our own experience confirms it. So let’s stop pretending.
Instead of stretching those productive hours over five days, we can consolidate them into four and give people back a whole extra day every week. A day to recharge, reset, and come back stronger.
The future of work isn’t about doing more it’s about doing better. And that starts with realizing that less can truly be more.
