Hugh: To No One’s Surprise, Workers are Less Productive and Make More Mistakes on Friday Afternoons

Happy Friday! Whether you’re burnt out from what seemed like a long week of work or you’ve got your mind on the weekend ahead, it’s safe to say you might not be your most productive at work this afternoon. It turns out that new research findings actually back up the idea that many employees are mentally checked-out of work by Friday afternoon. The study looked at computer usage metrics to determine how much work was actually being done across hundreds of in-office workers and found a few interesting trends. First, productivity seems to increase every day from Monday to Thursday, before falling off significantly on Friday. Second, employees make more mistakes during the afternoon in general, and that trend is especially true on Fridays. The findings seem to support the idea of flexible work schedule or a four-day work week that allows workers to get all their tasks done while working fewer hours to reduce burnout and make the most of productivity.