Here’s Why We Should All Take Friday Off

Happy Firday! I mean happy Friday! Sorry for the typo. This is not my most productive day of the week. I’m a little burned out and more apt to make mistakes as my mind drifts toward another much-needed weekend. Turns out the same is true across the country and around the world, and the time we waste screwing up on Friday is bad for our physical health and mental well-being. Just look at the data. Most of us are at our worst on Fridays, new research reveals. We get less work done and we don’t do it so well. Especially after lunch. “Employees were less active in the afternoons and made more typos in the afternoons — especially on Fridays,” said Taehyun Roh, PhD, an assistant professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at the Texas A&M School of Public Health. “This aligns with similar findings that the number of tasks workers complete increases steadily from Monday through Wednesday, then decreases on Thursday and Friday.” Rather than relying on subjective measures, Roh and colleagues figured this out by monitoring computer use of 789 in-office employees at a Texas company for two years. “We used computer usage metrics — things like typing speed, typing errors and mouse activity — to get objective, noninvasive data on computer work patterns,” said study team member Mark Benden, PhD, a professor and director of the university’s ergonomics center. <a href="https://medium.com/wise-well/heres-why-we-should-all-take-friday-off-4f78692d4ddd">Website</a>