Is it a work week… or work weak?
Do we look forward to the weekend—or are we simply weakened by the time we get there?

The 40-hour work week didn’t appear by accident. It evolved during and after the Industrial Revolution, when efficiency became the priority and human energy became a resource to organize.

It was Henry Ford who standardized the 5-day, 40-hour work week. It was seen as progressive at a time when workers were being exploited, and in many ways, it was beneficial. However, it also revealed that well-rested workers are more productive and people with time off become better consumers. Clever motive behind the shift and the system worked; well, it worked for industry, for economics and for structure but how about for the individual?

From the worker’s perspective, when you stack a typical day—work, commute, meals, responsibilities, sleep—you’re not left with much life in between. Not real, intentional life, anyway, jus fragments.

And ever since lockdown, those fragments have dissolved and the work week can feel like one very long day that starts Monday morning and ends Friday evening … if it ends at all.

Work no longer has a clear start or finish time.  Messages bleed into evenings and weekends.  Personal phones have become office lines.  And “availability” has replaced any sign of boundaries.

What happened to work-life balance?  Those lines that I remember in BC (before cells) when I was done the moment I left my office, didn’t just blur… they dissolved.

So now it’s not just about a 40-hour work week. It’s about a life that is constantly on-call.

When does the thinking happen? When does the creation and growth happen?  When do you have time to build something for you or that actually belongs to you?

Aha! ~ Life is more than something you squeeze in around work.

If you’re too exhausted to move yourself forward, understand this: it’s not that you don’t have potential, it’s that your time, focus and energy have already been pre-assigned.

It is also that this kind of scheduling can make you feel like you never finish, like you’re always behind.  It’s not about lack of ambition but that in this state of over-availability, there is no unclaimed energy.  More importantly, this feeling of having to be “on” all the time contributes to being stuck in a destructive state of fight-or-flight.

Let me ask you this to underscore my point: do you feel drained just thinking of creating a new project, birthing a side hustle or agreeing to that big volunteer role?  Here’s the thing.  When you’re in fight-or-flight mode, you’re operating from the amygdala, the primitive part of your brain that concerns itself only with survival. In order to access the prefrontal cortex – the executive centre or creative part of your brain – you need to feel relaxed, safe and protected. The thought of creating when you’re in the sympathetic state is downright exhausting and virtually impossible. It’s not your fault. It’s the design of the system that has you imprisoned. But you have the key.

If you don’t consciously reclaim your hours, the default structure will continue to spend them for you.  This is where I believe entrepreneurship starts to feel less like a risk, more like a release. Not because it’s easy but because it’s yours … like a crack in the glass ceiling.

Have you become so conditioned to allowing the system to dictate what you’re worth that you don’t dare ask your spirit what it’s capable of? You were designed for way more than existence and to safely tiptoe your way to death.  Is it time to make a decision to stop waiting for the time to do whatever, and start reclaiming it?

In the end it’s not about rejecting the system but leveraging it.

You weren’t built to just recover on weekends but to expand. And that moment begins the moment you decide that life isn’t something you squeeze in.  It’s something you create.  Make it yours.  Make it exhilarating.

My FAVOURITE business model for those who can’t fathom starting something of their own, is network marketing.  With absolutely zero business experience and minimal time, you can plug yourself into a well-oiled machine with products, distribution, marketing, legal, customer service ALL done for you.  You simply leverage it working whatever hours you choose.  BRILLIANT, EH?  Want real time & money freedom?  It’s yours for the asking … find me here …  [email protected].