Will a 6-Hour Work Day Make You More Productive?

A Businesswire journalist asked, “Will working a 6-hour work day make you more productive?”

Here is my response:

Working less has the potential to make you more productive.

When I’ve asked my time management clients to track their time for one week, they’re able to calculate their time losses. We lose time each day to what I call time leaks – interruptions, distractions, loss of focus. They happen for only a few minutes at a time, which is why we don’t think much of it. But when you track your time and add up the time loss, my clients were losing up to three hours a day total to these leaks.

Interruptions, distractions and loss of focus are all connected to mind management. If you are fully present during the work day – instead of cruising on autopilot – your brain will catch you before you deep dive into one of these leaks. But if you don’t practice mind management, the time loss will continue.

How does this relate to a six-hour workday? If you weren’t practicing mind management during an eight-hour day, will you now practice mind management during a six-hour day? If high performance practices were not in place during your longer day, will they now suddenly appear?

In theory, working less has the potential to make you more productive because your brain will be forced to focus for fewer hours, which does help increase productivity. But if you don’t implement mind management, you have the probability to allow the same proportion of time loss during your shorter work day.