Term of the Time: Soft Days
Step-by-step toward a four-day workweek?
I encountered two complementary terms that are making the social rounds on LinkedIn, TikTok, IG, and Reddit. They share the root word ‘soft’, in distinction with ‘hard’. (Duh).
Soft-Off Day, according to Kara Reinhardt at LinkedIn:
The trend of "soft off days" — where employees engage in personal activities during work hours — has surged as many seek better work-life balance, Fast Company reports. The practice often stems from feeling underpaid and overworked, prompting workers to reclaim their time. Employees typically manage their workloads and monitor their messages to maintain the appearance of productivity. A growing acceptance and lack of guilt suggests a need for workplace cultures that prioritize flexibility and employee well-being.
The Soft-On Day is a bit more work-focused: instead of indulging in personal activities while on the clock, you continue working at a slower, less aggressive pace. Andrea Navarro links this variant of work/life balance productivity to TikTok creator Sloane (@sloane_wfh) [emphasis Navarro’s]:
According to Sloane, a soft-on day is a day “when you spend the day catching up on all the little things that you’ve been needing to get done.” She claims you “have to do it from your couch, in your cozies, while having your favorite re-runs on in the background.” This is a day when you’re online and getting things done, just at a lighter, lower-stress pace. So you’re available, you’re responsive, and you’re chipping away at the tasks that don’t require deep focus, but you’re not pushing yourself to operate at maximum productivity.
[…]
Her premise is simple: every WFH employee should have at least one soft-on day a week—and she’s not the only one who thinks so. Users in the comments of her videos agree, claiming soft-on days are “mandatory.” Some even say they take up to three soft-on days every week to maintain their sanity and productivity output.
I personally interpret this trend as a presaging of shorter workweeks. There’s growing evidence that workers can get the same amount of work done in four days as in five. See Juliet Schorr’s Four Days A Week, for data-driven case studies and meta-analysis of other research, or listen to her TED talk.
Although her work predates the soft trend, my hunch is people are building the four-day workweek organically and bottom-up, since their employers aren’t smart enough to institute it as top-down policy.
Have you taken soft days, of either flavor? (I’ve made this a free post so everyone can answer the question.)