Review: The Five Hour Workday

Aarstol's book details his motivation for implementing a five-hour (8am-1pm) workday at his company, Tower Paddleboards.


It's a breezy confident read which is packed full of inspiring anecdotes, but unfortunately rather lacking in implementation detail. As a result, it's probably best read as a manifesto rather than a how-to guide.

Essentially, the core idea is that you get the best out of employees for only a few hours a day, and you can massively enhance their productivity using various tools which are helpfully listed on an accompanying website.

Taken together, motivated employees can deliver the same or greater levels of productivity as those working a full day.

It's a plausible pitch to founders.

I did find the short section on defining the company's values by aligning both staff and company interests and objectives instructive - as well as the final list:

• Be positive
• Be hungry and driven
• Be authentic and compassionate
• Be fun loving and social
• Be open minded and think differently
• Be selfless and family/team orientated
• Believe my body is my temple
• Be a transparent communicator. 

Overall, it's an approach not unlike and possibly inspired by Ferriss' Four Hour Work Week - which is the better of the two books if you had to choose one.

Verdict: Scaling Mr Ferriss