Episode 163: How to Work Fewer Hours, Make More Money, and Spend Time Doing What You Want with Joe Sanok

In his book, Thursday is the New Friday, author Joe Sanok offers exercises, tools, and training that have helped thousands of professionals, from authors and scholars to business leaders and innovators, create the schedule they want, resulting in less work, greater income, and more time for what they most desire. Joe doesn’t just write about a four-day workweek, he lives it! Going from working 60-hour weeks to traveling with his family full time in an RV while being even more productive at work, Joe believes that working for yourself in your own business shouldn’t have to feel like a job.

Joe is also the host of the popular The Practice of the Practice Podcast, which is recognized as one of the Top 50 Podcasts worldwide with over 100,000 downloads each month. In today’s episode, Joe shares what inspired him to write Thursday is the New Friday and reflects on the history of the seven-day week before diving into the logistics of shifting to a four-day workweek, including the benefits of setting hard and soft boundaries and some of the results he has seen from organizations that have made Thursday the new Friday. We also touch on internal inclinations and sprint types, and Joe leaves listeners with a final piece of advice: use the opportunity that COVID-19 has provided to reinvent what work looks like!

With many of you redesigning how you and your workforce show up every day, whether that means remote work or shorter workweeks, you’re going to find a lot of value in this conversation. Make sure to tune in today!

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• What inspired Joe to write this book and why he describes it as a “returning home.”
• The history of the seven-day week and how COVID is turning the concept of work on its head.
• Learn more about the logistics and research behind Thursday becoming the new Friday.
• How Joe engages with clients on a consulting basis to conduct customized time experiments.
• Joe on what he calls 'internal inclinations’ and how they affect productivity: curiosity, an outsider’s perspective, and the ability to take action.
• What allows top leaders to maintain an outsider’s perspective, including trying new things.
• An important question to ask yourself: if I were to start from scratch, would I be doing this?
• Find out how prioritizing speed over accuracy can help those paralyzed by perfection.
• Applying the concept of a four-day workweek to creativity and productivity by setting both hard and soft boundaries.
• Joe shares the premise of The Practice of the Practice Podcast and what he learns from it.
• Some of the results organizations are seeing as they shift to a four-day workweek, including improved talent retention, productivity, and economic benefits.
• Find out what the different sprint types are, from time block sprinters to intensive sprinters.
• Finding variability within the four different sprint types depending on what works for you.
• Joe shares some final words of wisdom: use this opportunity to reinvent what work looks like.