Business View Oceania | September 2020

16 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA SEPTEMBER 2020 BOOKMARKED in the way of his ability to be productive and put boundaries in place for himself. But when you are hyper stressed and burnt out, that ability isn’t easy to see.” BVO: Are you a victim of your own success with the popularity of 4 Day Week and how many days do you work? Lockhart: “We are so much more fortunate than 95 percent of the workforce because we have self-determination of our use of time. And because of the type of work we do, our work life looks like most people’s dream life. I spend my days talking to really interesting people about changing the world. However, we do have to exercise some real discipline around having time out from doing it. We don’t necessarily need more time with each other because luckily we work together. But we need to make sure we spend most of our life together not working. “So we have little hacks. For example, we use iPads for reading digital magazines and articles, etc. and we don’t have email on them. So we can take off for the weekend and read as much as we want but we’re not distracted by constant ‘ping’ notifications. I also have two telephones, my “big life” phone and a personal phone. So, particularly when we’re travelling, my elderly mother can get hold of me. I carry that phone with me and when it rings I answer it. Compared with if I’m taking some time out, I can leave my work phone. These are just simple things in our world of being ‘always on’ that a lot of people don’t do. “We actually block out space in our diary so we take time out to refresh. Andrew is a keen sailor, we have a lovely classic yacht in New Zealand, so he will take off and sail on weekends and get a true break. It’s quite well recognised that if high performers have an active sport or method of relaxing which takes them away from their ordinary life, it tends to create higher performance. The sailing is a huge part of that for Andrew.” BVO: Where will you take it from here, will there be a second book down the road? Lockhart: “I think so. The focus for us at the moment is the boots on the ground strategy so we can help more companies start to activate a 4 day week. And the Global Academic Board so we can set loose on the world a process by where all this research is being gathered and structured. We’re in discussions with the publisher around what the next book will look like. Arguably, there will be two because it’s an interesting story around how you create a movement and where that movement goes and how it was formed. And then there’s an additional how-to guide, an airport-style book, where people can be looking for little life hacks. Some are things that a business might do to create a better workforce. And others will be ones we can take personal responsibility for. Focusing on how to create work that allows you to be high performance without burning out.” BVO: What are the most important insights you’d like to share? Lockhart: “Our top objective at the moment is to get a structural program in place that means Andrew and I can walk away from the day-to-day running of the program and work on more of the high-end aspects; engage with governments and have discussions with large businesses like Microsoft to show them how they can find the way. Most companies are grappling with what is the future of work and how do we create this? Doing yoga at work only goes so far towards propping up mental health in the workplace… the key is that we’re just working too much. If your life is falling apart because you’re not having any time to be you, then anything you do at work isn’t fixing that.