Good Things Come in Threes

Throughout my two months in Brussels, I took two courses at Vesalius College. When planning my schedule, I knew that I had to take classes which would transfer back to history credit at Furman. Lucky for me, both of these classes were on the same days twice a week. Because of this, I took my two classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and I worked at the Lifelong Learning Platform for 8 hours on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

I got to work at around 9:30 every morning and I left around 5:30. This allowed me to reach the 24 hours every week which were required by EPA and Furman.

In my previous post, I mentioned that the best part about my internship was my colleagues. We were all so close and collaborated on numerous projects involving education. To promote teamwork, we emailed each other a large amount throughout the day.

Since I was only working three days a week and I really needed to focus on my classes and personal needs the other two days, I tended to not check my work email on those days. This allowed for me to avoid unnecessary stress and panic on days where I was not in the office.

I found my three day work week to be quite productive for me. Even though this meant working full days on Fridays, I really did enjoy my time spent in the office. If my class schedule were a bit different, I think that I would have preferred to work a full day on either Tuesday or Thursday, which would have given me an extra day over the weekend to travel throughout Europe. But, c’est la vie.

By “taking off” Tuesdays and Thursdays every week, my Wednesdays and Fridays were remarkably productive. I would spend the beginning of everyday checking all my emails from the day before, which usually led to finding more tasks and projects which needed to be completed. If I had read all those emails on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I would have completed the work while being distracted by the fact that I should be studying or doing homework.

Every Monday morning, I tried to schedule my entire week using my planner. This led to somewhat of an agenda that I had to follow each day when I was working. Since I was only working three days a week, this meant that I had less time each week to complete all of these tasks. I am the type of person who likes to create and follow deadlines, so I found myself completing a higher quality of work in a shorter amount of time.

I think that an extra day off could lead to more productivity throughout the week for other workplaces as well. Research has shown that four day work weeks are actually less expensive for businesses than five day weeks are, even though they are paying their employees the same salary. This research also showed that a four day work schedule is in fact more productive than a regular five day week in the United Kingdom.

If it were up to me, I would suggest that all companies move to a four day work week in order to promote savings and productivity among their employees. On top of these business benefits, I think that people would be overall happier if they had an extra day to spend with their family and friends, or just watching more reruns of The Office. Either way, I believe that an extra day away from the typical work environment could be beneficial for all involved.