This week I have been learning about results from 4 day workweek pilot programs.

..It’s made me think about things we do that motivate others to lie…

..And that made me think about ice cream sandwiches…

Allow me to connect the dots.

When I was about 12 years old, my sister and I were sitting in front of the television when my father stepped in front of the screen and placed an ice cream sandwich wrapper on the table in front of us.

“Which one of you ate the ice cream sandwich?” He asked. We were only allowed to eat ice cream after dinner for dessert.

…We looked silently at him…

…Then he presented his evidence…

“I took out the trash this morning. After last night, there was one ice cream sandwich left and your mother got a new box today. Tonight, you had to open a new box of ice cream sandwiches which means the ice cream sandwich that was there last night was eaten sometime today and the wrapper was put in the trash.”

He rested his case and waited for our response.

My father was a banking and real estate lawyer not a prosecutor, but I was feeling the heat and wondering if he harbored secret ambitions to go after bad guys. And my mother, an avid reader of mysteries, had proved she was no slouch as an amateur sleuth.

I had eaten the ice cream sandwich, but I was not going to fess up under the circumstances.

… Someone was going to get in big trouble and I didn’t want it to be me.

I’d rather it was my sister who was always getting into trouble anyway so what would one more time matter? If she took the fall, I reasoned, I could maintain my perfect record and she would not suffer further damage to her reputation. And why hadn’t I thought about the wrapper??

…Given my sister’s track record, my father zeroed in on her…

“We know one of you ate the ice cream sandwich,” he looked directly at her. “And it would be much better if you told the truth about it.”

I kept my mouth shut.

…And then my sister started to cry… Big crocodile tears…

I watched my father stand over her encouraging her to tell the truth as she tried to convince him that she was not lying. Only I could restore her credibility and end the accusations.

“I did it!” I burst out.

You may be thinking to yourself, Jeese, it’s just an ice cream sandwich, what’s the big deal? There’s a point of view that rules are rules and you build trust by following them.

Which brings me to the four day work week. For years evidence has been mounting that a four day work week actually increases productivity and well-being in business, government, among knowledge workers and manual shift workers.

Think about what that means in concrete terms: higher quality products produced at a greater volume with a reduction in the kind of stress that causes chronic diseases that are expensive to treat, and that organizations often bear the cost of as providers of medical insurance.

One of the theories about the success of four day workweeks is that we are not made to focus for 9 hours straight, 5 days a week. The average attention span of an adult is 45 minutes and to maximize this we need flexibility during the day and the kind of resilience that comes from a well balanced life.

Stress and overwork tax us to a degree that it actually interrupts the amount of time we’re able to achieve “flow” during the day: a state of focus when someone is completely immersed in their work.

The long hours back to back end up being counterproductive.

This sets people up for a very difficult choice: sneak the time you need for restoration so you can achieve flow, or power through at cost to the quality of your work.

With a 40 hour (plus??) work week, are we following rules for rules sake despite the mounting evidence that it is counterproductive to our goals?

Get out of this no win situation by focusing on the accomplishment of tasks and goals instead of accountability for time.

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