The One Minute Workweek

Today we have come a long way in our work culture.  As late as the 1980s students of American History were commonly taught that one of the things that made America great was out Puritan Work Ethic.  It sounded great: we Americans naively believed that we were blessed with such a high standard of living because at our core we valued hard work.  On further examination we learned that valuing hard work was something that was not unique to Puritans or even Americans.  As it turns out most successful and even some unsuccessful cultures hod high the value of hard work.  I suppose that revelation may have slightly injured some Americans' pride but most Americans still value hard work and most of us are sure glad that we have had the good fortune to either be born in America or to have finally made it to America.  We are truly a blessed people and our forefathers have worked hard for centuries to secure Americas blessings of liberty.

Other lessons from American History that many of us still cling to are the ideas that America is a land of opportunity and many of those opportunities allow even the poorest among us to use our imagination and creative problem solving skills to help others, make life better for others, and to build wealth while doing so.  It is curious to consider for a minute how our work culture has developed.  We Americans had no labor laws at the beginning of the 1900s.  Children were even forced to work long hours in dangerous conditions for very little pay.  In the Depression Era of the late 1920s to early 1940s many Americans would have been proud to work as many hours a week as they could find.  The problem was that many Americans during the Depression Era couldn't find work at all.  As times improved we eventually established laws that prohibited children from working, limited a workweek to 40 hours, and even established a minimum hourly wage that has steadily increased.  Today we seem to be moving from a society that values hard work to a society that is trying to figure out how to build wealth so that we need not work. It is a lofty goal.  If you think about it, we have always had this dual personality.  While we do value hard work; we are also most impressed with those individuals who through imagination and creative genius have invented machines and processes that have eliminated hard work. The Industrial Era that ushered in difficult and deplorable working conditions for many ultimately improved life for most Americans.  Today we finally seem to have reached the point where most of us can work smarter instead of harder.  A time where many Americans and really many many people throughout the world can make a living from sharing our ideas.  People like Tim Ferriss have challenged the standard that we must still work 40 hours a week, save every penny for retirement, and wait until our mid-60s to starting enjoying the good life.  My grandparents lived through the Great Depression and honestly, being able to retire at all was like the promised land for them.  Remember, Dr. Charles Townsend came up with the idea of having Social Security only after finding some old women rummaging through his trash for food.  Almost no one in America used to retire.  If people were lucky, they were able to live with their children when they got too old to make a living.  We are truly blessed to live in America during these times.  

But I digress, back to today and what I was saying about pioneers like Tim Ferriss.  Ferriss has written a book,well actually two books, entitled "The 4-hour Workweek." It is a great book loaded with ideas for living the life you choose while working no more than 4-hours a week.  Wow from a 40-hour workweek to only 4!  How far can this trend go?  What about a One Minute Workweek?! Now we are talking.

How could you possibly manage to make a living with just one minute of work a week ?  I think that there are at least two paths to this mythical "One Minute Workweek".  First, we could automate our lives to the point where we employ many other people and simply take about a minute to relay directions to our workforce.  Another idea that pops into my head is maybe we ought to decide whether what we are engaged in is truly work or play.  I have worked with people who have described my work is advanced coloring which is kind of funny because I was horrible at art as a child but it is easier to color inside the lines using a computer than it is with a crayon and paper.  The bigger point here is that if you really enjoy what you are doing perhaps you really can minimize the "work" you do in a week to just a minute.  I think the clue for me has been when my boss has to tell me that he is not paying me overtime - meaning of course that I have forgotten the fact that I am actually working.  I am good at my job and really like it most of the time.  Markus Frind, the Plenty of Fish.com guy, is also pretty good at his job, probably likes it and manages to make millions of dollars more a year more than me while working far fewer hours.  We should figure out how to duplicate what he's doing. 

Of course there may also be some opportunities in future posts to explore the lighter side of the mythical "One Minute Workweek."  I anticipate considering how some people seem to avoid work all day while somehow keeping their job and getting paid. I also intend to poke fun of a wide variety of people and clearly silly advice that is out there about making a fortune while doing nothing.  I assure you if there is a legal way to make money and work only One Minute a Week, you will read about the process here first. Of course I will be posting from a beach somewhere and my typing may be slowed because of the fruity drink in one of my hands. Oh and some of it might not make sense but once you get to know me you will realize that I don't feel constrained by silly limitations like "having to make sense."  If you read something on this blog that doesn't seem to make sense, just assume that I have briefly gone over your head intellectually and keep searching for the deeper meaning that you have clearly missed.