If you’re working in any capacity right now, perhaps you are familiar with this scenario: It’s a Friday and you’re trying your best to focus and accomplish anything. The sun is hanging low in the sky by 3 p.m. and you can feel your desire to crawl into bed increasing. You look up at 4:30 and realize it’s completely dark; you haven’t even been outside yet today, and it’s looking less likely than ever that you’ll be going for a walk in the dark once you finish work. Not that there’s anywhere to go right now, anyway.
I have a solution to this—I think you’re gonna love it. It’s called Winter Fridays. Just like how in the summer some white-collar employers give their employees a little half-day treat on Fridays to enjoy the sunshine, or day drink, or simply take a nap, Winter Fridays are essentially that, but in the winter. You arguably need time off on Fridays more in the winter than you do during other times of the year. There are fewer hours of daylight, and while I don’t personally haven’t conducted any science on this, I have to imagine it’s not good for any of us, already necessarily limited by where we can go and what we can do during a global pandemic, to work all day on Fridays when it gets dark at 4 and we’re all in various states of personal mental distress. Let us out to experience a few hours of sun and relax, untethered from our responsibilities and our…
