In all the suffering and hardship of lockdown – which fell particularly hard on minorities and the working classes – many people saw something quite different. For those with some financial security, lockdown could be an opportunity for leisure time unrivalled since childhood. From sourdough bread to cycling to community volunteering, many new hobbies and pastimes bloomed in popularity. We learned that, when people were given the time and space, they had a wealth of energy for themselves and their communities. With some more space from their jobs, people began to fill the gaps with something else: themselves. 

For so many in our society work overshadows everything. It swallows up the daylight hours, often with tasks that, if we’re honest, feel meaningless and boring. At home the work doesn’t stop – we cook, clean, and care for our children, and so by the time all the work is over it’s late in the evening and the best we can muster is dozing off in front of the TV. And for what? This humongous time investment grants us the money we need to keep living just as we do, while at the same time filling the pockets of elites, whose wealth skyrockets day by day. 

On top of all this, work has been presented to us since childhood as the most purposeful thing in our life. It is how we identify ourselves and leave our stamp on the world. It’s supposed to be a source of so much happiness, and so it can feel like our fault when reality inevitably hands us work that isn’t the stuff of dreams. Even if we are given our dream job, the truth is that work is work, not play. 

It doesn’t have to be like this. Over-work isn’t necessary, in fact it hinders so many aspects of our lives. The solutions are out there, if only we have the courage to take them. By reducing the working week to four days long, while ensuring no reduction in pay, we can carve out more of our lives for, well, us.  

Recently, a trial of the four-day week in Iceland was branded “an overwhelming success” by the director of research at UK think tank Autonomy. When their working hours were reduced, people had more time to spend with their families and on their hobbies and household chores. They felt less stressed and reported better work-life balance. Despite all this, productivity stayed the same or improved in most workplaces. This is a story repeated over and over again in research. 

There are environmental benefits too – one report published in May found that the four-day week could reduce the UK’s carbon footprint by 127 million tonnes per year. That’s roughly equivalent to taking the UK’s entire private car fleet off the road. 

By carving out more space for ourselves, wonderful things can happen. Physical and mental health improves as people have more time to exercise and recuperate from the week’s work with leisure activities, which is incredibly important and beneficial. Society grows fairer, as unpaid work is shared between all instead of being prescribed mainly to women. People are given more time to care for one another, including children and the elderly, building and strengthening relationships. By sharing work more evenly both unemployment and over-work are reduced. At home there’s time to make more sustainable choices, with TV and ready meals giving way to home cooking, reading and other low-carbon activities, while we all live less stressful and more fulfilling lives. There’s more time for communities to come together, boosting democracy as campaigns create local, national and international change. This is a change that should certainly be encouraged.

The four-day work week is not the be all and end all, but it’s a great place to start. It should be seen as a firm step forwards towards the creation of a more fair and just society, one built not for the likes of Bezos and Musk, but for the benefit of all. It represents a chance for us to come together and imagine this new society, to build it. But to do this we have to grapple with the fact that we are meant for more than work, and that our society is built for those far richer than the average person. Since research is showing that we might be more productive given more time off, companies such as Unilever are trialling the policy in the hopes that we might become better workers. Let’s not forget our true aim, to become better people. 

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