Now that the world’s biggest trial of a four-day week is under way, it occurs to me that if you really want to examine the effect of squeezing the greatest amount of productivity into the smallest amount of time, there’s a pilot that has been going on for donkey’s years. It’s called being a mum.
In order to examine the test case more closely, head to your nearest school gate, supermarket or play park. You will probably spot her doing something apparently humdrum but on closer inspection logistically impossible. Such as pushing a buggy, unpeeling a banana, singing The Wheels on the Bus with spontaneously inserted lyrics to counter the patriarchy, and listening to someone else’s problems on a mobile lodged between ear and shoulder, all at the same time. Go on. Approach her. But be gentle because she is not used to being seen, and might take fright. Tap her on the shoulder – no, not the phone-propping one, the other one that’s carrying a scooter. Ask her how she is.
My children are four, eight and 11, if you count the dog, which I do because she falls into the bottomless category of Things That Cannot Take Care Of Themselves. I work from 9am to 1.47pm (we 100% productivity types are specific about time), which is when I charge to nursery to pick up the four-year-old, and I have never got so much done in my life. Since having children, my preferred working hours are 5am to 7am, not because of the peace, sunrise over the sycamores and all that crap, but because, to earn a living, I need everyone in the house to be unconscious.
The trial – the official one, not the maternal trial of life – will see more than 3,300 workers at 70 companies working a four-day week with no loss of pay. It is based on the 100:80:100 model: 100% of pay for 80% of the time in exchange for a commitment to maintain 100% productivity. Ah, so there’s the rub. We’re more accustomed to the 0:100:100 model. And, frankly, you work it out because I haven’t got the bloody time.
Chitra Ramaswamy is a Guardian columnist
