Four-day week: An idea whose time is on its way

Tokyo is set to offer its administrative staff a three-day weekly break. Microsoft tried it in Japan and saw productivity leap. It seems like the future. But how long before it arrives?

In the old days, when a formal job usually meant a sarkari one, work flexibility meant something else. It was an idea captured by Parkinson's Law, which mixed insight with levity to state: "Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion."

It was freely cited in administrative circles, often to explain an abundance of free time, or the concept of stretch targets, which referred back then to tasks being stretched as far as they could be. Once work began to get market-oriented, incentive structures started pushing workers the other way: to work fast.