There’s a lot of talk going on in UK just now about the shorter working week, and whether it might contribute to sustainability.  It’s partly down to a report produced by the think-tank, nef (new economics foundation – trendy in lower letters!). The Independent Newspaper  kindly boils the report down to half a page.

The general argument is that in the UK we work harder than many of our European colleagues. Not as hard as folks in the US, but hard. Harder than we were 30 years ago, apparently.  The nef thinks that a move down to a 21-hour working week would be a Good Thing For The Planet.  By earning less, we would consume less, which must be good for the planet.

In my role as an executive coach, I meet many high flying executives who work very long hours.  I also meet some who don’t.  Yet the ones who work shorter hours are just as ‘successful’ (depending on how you define success) as those who work longer hours.

Among successful executives, some work hard because they feel they ‘should’.  The organisation expects it of them.  Some work hard because they love what they do.  And for some, work is a better alternative than going home to a lonely house/an angry partner/howling kids or some other unwanted alternative.  And a few work hard because they or they families are rampant consumers.

My own take on this is that if people are loving what they do, then why shouldn’t they do it?  The problems arise when people are forced to work long hours, or they think they should for fear of losing their job or of failing or of falling down the economic pan.  For those who stay at work because it is better than the alternative, the brutal answer is ‘sort your life out’, because come retirement day there’s a risk life really will lose all meaning.

Tim Ferris’ excellent book ‘The Four Hour Working Week’ really turns the idea of the 40 hour working week on its head.  Even if you don’t subscribe to his thinking, it’s worth a read to see what is possible.

Of course, it’s very easy to talk about the need to return to a shorter working week if you can still earn enough to feed your family.  But even in London, where some of the richest people in the world hang out, there are a huge number of people who are living on the poverty line.  Those who are working struggle to find anything that pays a living wage.  Under 16 hours a week and you can claim income support ( of course, I’m grossly simplifying the rules of a complex system).

But there are plenty of people who have gone from poverty to riches, from working all their waking hours to a 16-20 hour week or even less.  And a lot of them have done it by becoming internet marketers.