Permission granted: Letting go of the 8-hour work habit

Earlier this year, I spent three weeks in January and early-February on Kangaroo Island, South Australia. Given the 8.5-hour time difference relative to South Africa, I suddenly had “swathes” of protected time. And quite unexpectedly I was able to turn the workday on its head. Heaps of time in the morning for myself - exercise and journalling at a reasonable time when the sun was already up. I’d do a quick hour of admin and email catch-up and then only fully begin work at 11:30 (yes, I’ll admit it, the workday ended a bit later than usual).

I never questioned the 8-hour workday for the first 15 years of my career. It was a given. I assumed that if it couldn’t give my best for 8 or even 12 (consulting life!) work hours per day there was something wrong with me. During one of my first work strategy sessions, colleagues expressed (as a positive affirmation) their admiration for how balanced I was. Again, I thought there was something wrong with me. Clearly, I was working too little, while my colleagues managed to effortlessly spend hours in front of the laptop.

Two weeks ago, I found myself in a similar situation in mid-winter in Western Australia. Now I only had a 6-hour time difference relative to South Africa. A little bit less “protected time”, but still enough. The first time it happened this year, I couldn’t quite figure out what had caused my totally different experience of life. This time I knew with absolute certainty why I suddenly allowed myself to have long, meandering beach walks during mid-morning. I was supported by an external sense of permission.

The 8-hour workday has its roots in the industrial revolution, when factory workers often toiled for 12–16 hours a day. In 1817, Welsh labour rights activist Robert Owen started advocating for “eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest.” But it wasn’t until the early 20th century that this idea became a strong, structural reality for most workers. Today, with knowledge work and flexible tools, the original assumptions driving this approach to work deserve rethinking.

There have recently been several writers who have explored the historical roots of the 8-hour workday, as people have started questioning their realities. Here I share just two favourites. Cal Newport’s Deep Work tells us that some of the people who have made the best work contributions to the world need at least 4–5-hours focus time a day. In Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks, he traces how industrial-era clock‑driven schedules created the expectation of a full 8‑hour day. And how that approach to work no longer fits our daily work schedules or lives.

What if we gave ourselves permission to design our own days and linger longer on the activities that truly matter? Could we be more productive and make better contributions to the world by working less, by flipping our external sense of permission to an internal one? Here I shared just a few ideas that I’ve tried over the years and that I will continue to work on.

Block morning, afternoon or evening time in your calendar. Explicitly claiming protected time in your calendar for rest, creativity, journaling, or exercise. If it's “booked,” it feels legitimate, even if you’re your own boss. But now you have to keep on protecting this time…

Build a mental library of role models. Keep a short list of people you admire who don’t follow conventional schedule, like some of the writers I’ve mentioned  - Oliver Burkeman, Cal Newport, writers, researchers, or creatives you know personally. This helps you to experience your choices as not outside the usual.

Frame your new way of working as an experiment (this approach has helped me with many things I valued and actively pursued in life). “For 2 weeks, I’ll structure my work around when I feel most focused. I’ll observe what shifts in energy, productivity, and mood.”

Track outcomes like “Did I finish that hard task more easily?” or “Was I less irritable in the evening?” Reinforce the positive consequences of the new rhythm.

Move with your energy flows. As a woman I know very clearly when in my four-week hormonal cycle I’m at my most creative. It is hard to admit in a work forum like this, but my creativity is not equally spread during my hormonal cycle. Similarly, I know I do my best deep work when I’ve first addressed the small administrative tasks that are time sensitive. I prioritise creative, ideation and deep work activities for the times when my energy best supports this.

Years ago, I was asked: if you had all the money in the world, how would you live? It is a blue skies question that can reveal quite a lot about anyone’s heart, even soul, desires.

Some ideas from my answer to this question then: live by the sea in Zanzibar. A magical place, peaceful, still working but only doing work I love, maximum 5 hours a day. And with the other time? Painting, going for lazy early morning walks, baking, cooking, gardening, seeing friends. (Side note: after a recent work conference and holiday in Bali, I may replace the Zanzibar idea with a Balinese flavour.)

In short: my desire was for a life with less work, more balance and free time and more creativity. Perhaps this is possible if we let go of the antiquated idea of the 8-hour workday and keep on strengthening our sense of internal permission. It is arguably not easy in a world that imposes a rigid external workday structure on us. But the internet, remote work and new ways of working are slowly starting to provide external permission. If only we could arrive at strong enough internal yes.