The 8-hour myth
A personal reflection on reimagining work hours at Antropia. Why working less might be the key to living more—and why the 8-hour workday is a century-old myth we need to question.
There’s this recurring conversation I’ve had with myself many times, usually around 3 PM when my brain feels like it’s swimming through molasses. I often started wondering why I was still there, staring at my screen when deep inside me, I really knew nothing meaningful would emerge from these foggy afternoon hours.
This feeling isn’t about laziness or lack of commitment. It’s about something more fundamental: the growing disconnect between how we structure work and how I, and more generally humans, actually function at my best.
Those rare times I’ve pushed myself into longer days — trying to squeeze out just a bit more — have always left me feeling miserable. Not accomplished. Not proud. Just depleted, wondering why I thought staring at a screen for extra hours would magically produce better work.
The Myth of the Eight-Hour Day
The eight-hour workday is a social fight that goes back to the industrial revolution, where work was designed for factory floors where human output could be measured in widgets per hour. Spain was the first country that introduced a law restricting all types of work to a maximum of eight hours a day back in 19191. That was more than 100 years ago. Since then, workers have fought and won many rights we can thankfully all enjoy today. Still, the 8-hour day is still deeply engraved in our brains. Its influence is so strong we barely think about it anymore, we work 8-hours because well… because that’s how it is. There has been a recent debate in Spanish politics about lowering the working hours to 7.5 hours a day2, that’s huge, but still seems like an arbitrary value.
Research Preface
When I first started writing this section, I was all about reading what the studies said and finding evidence that suggested that reducing the working hours was, generally, a good idea for society. I soon fell into what I think is the trap all these studies fall into. They are generally short-sighted and focus on a single variable: productivity. I understand why they do this and why other factors are dismissed or passed over, but this is a clear case of Goodhart’s Law or the McNamara fallacy (both applicable depending on the way you look at it). We have forgotten the reason we are studying the reduction of work hours and have hyper-fixated on something easily measurable. We have forgotten that productivity is just a proxy metric for society’s well-being.
The philosopher Byung-Chul Han writes about our tiredness society, where we’ve become our own taskmasters, driving ourselves toward burnout in the name of optimization and achievement. In The Burnout Society, he observes:
“The tiredness of exhaustion is not a tiredness of positive potency. It is a tiredness that separates and isolates.”
This resonates deeply with what I’ve been experiencing and where my mind automatically drives me when I investigate what to me is one of the most important matters. The constant push for productivity doesn’t just exhaust us — it disconnects us from ourselves, from others, from the very creativity we’re trying to access… and we don’t even realize.
What the Research Tells Us
The science actually backs up what our bodies already know. Cal Newport, in Deep Work, argues that most knowledge workers can only sustain about 3-4 hours of truly focused, cognitively demanding work per day. Anders Ericsson’s research on elite performers shows they rarely practice more than 4-5 hours daily3. Beyond that, returns diminish dramatically.
The larger experiments, like Iceland’s trial of a 4-day work week (with no reduction in pay) found that productivity actually increased across 2,500 workers4 (I’m well aware of the critiques here regarding not being a true 4-day week as they only reduced weekly hours from 40 to 35). Sweden’s experiments with 6-hour workdays showed similar results5 6. Microsoft Japan saw a 40% boost in productivity when they tested a 4-day week7.
Beyond these studies, a growing movement of companies, particularly in the IT sector, are taking matters into their own hands. There is a popular listing of companies called 4 day week that post offers for 4-day positions, with tech companies leading the charge in proving that less really can be more.
The paradox
We tell ourselves that working more hours equals more productivity, when data shows the exact opposite. We’ve internalized Parkinson’s law — that work expands to fill the time available — but somehow missed its inverse: constraining time often sharpens focus and output.
And there’s another troubling pattern at play here: a modified version of Jevons paradox. While it’s true that workers fought their way from 12-16 hour days during the industrial revolution down to the 8-hour standard by the early 20th century, something strange happened after that victory. Despite productivity per worker increasing by over 400% since 1950 in most developed economies, our standard working hours have remained frozen. We’ve become 4-5 times more efficient, yet we’re still clocking the same hours our great-grandparents did a century ago. Instead of translating these massive productivity gains into more time for living, we’ve simply increased output — creating more, consuming more, but not living more.
Finally, let me be clear one more time — productivity must not be our north star. We should care far more about quality of life, time with loved ones, and physical and mental wellbeing. I mention these productivity gains not because they’re the goal, but because they reveal how deeply we’ve been deceiving ourselves. The metrics that corporations worship actually improve when we prioritize being human.
My Own Experiment
Here’s what I’ve been doing for the last year: capping my workdays at six hours maximum, though most days I work closer to four. It’s not about rigid schedules or specific start times — it’s about recognizing when I’ve given my best and having the wisdom to stop. This has become one of the most important rules in Antropia as well.
On top of that, I’ve started building in purposeful pauses. A walk with my dog when my brain needs to breathe. A trip to the grocery store or time to prepare a nice meal. These moments of stepping away create space — space where connections form, where problems untangle themselves, where I can simply exist without the weight of productivity.
The shift has been subtle but profound. My walks with my dog feel different now — not because they’re longer or more frequent, but because the anxious mental chatter has quieted. I go grocery shopping and actually notice things: “Should I try miso paste? How do I cook it?”. I fix those garage lights that have been broken for months. I have actual conversations with loved ones — not the exhausted, half-present exchanges that used to pass for connection. Sometimes I just sit outside with a fiction book, letting my mind wander into someone else’s world.
I’m not living a life full of grand adventures or constant travel. That’s not what I’m seeking. What I’ve found instead is presence in the everyday — a deeper awareness in the simple rhythms of daily life. And that, surprisingly, has led to a much happier existence.
The Courage to Change
I’ll be honest — this entire post feels scary to write. There’s a voice in my head that whispers: But what will clients think? What about competition? What about…
But here’s what grounds me: Antropia exists because of a belief in putting people first. We’re not machines optimizing for output. We’re humans creating meaningful work while honoring our full humanity.
Our clients don’t hire us to warm chairs or rack up billable hours. They hire us to solve problems, create beauty, build systems that work. And we do that better when we’re energized, focused, and fully human. When we put people over everything else — our team, our clients, ourselves — the work naturally improves.
Moving Forward
This isn’t about working less for the sake of it. It’s about recognizing that sustainable excellence requires structuring work around human lives. It’s about having the courage to honor our whole selves — the parts that need rest, play, connection, and meaning beyond our screens.
At Antropia, we’re not just building products or delivering services. We’re experimenting with what work could be — a source of meaning and mastery that enhances rather than depletes our lives.
The question isn’t whether we can afford to work this way. The question is whether we can afford not to.
Context and Privilege
This is a reflection of my personal experience, and I’m acutely aware that my answer to the question of working hours comes from a specific context. Age, life stage, family situation, economic realities — all these factors shape what’s possible for each of us.
I can experiment with working less because I’m in a privileged position. I have a comfortable life without immediate financial urgencies. My loved ones won’t suffer if this experiment fails. Not everyone has this luxury, and I don’t want to pretend that my solution is universal.
The point isn’t to prescribe a one-size-fits-all solution, but to question whether our current defaults serve us well and to imagine what alternatives might be possible within our own circumstances.