It wasn’t until the 1930s that the term ‘weekend’ entered the vernacular in the UK. Before then, many were used to working six days a week and resting on the sabbath day.
But the mechanisation era of the 19th century brought with it huge productivity gains, changing working patterns until a five-day work week eventually became the norm.
One hundred years hence, will it be time for a new term to enter common parlance in the 2030s, to mark the shift to a three-day weekend?
Many commentators have already begun to refer to the flood of new AI tools available on the market as the ‘new industrial revolution’, and the productivity gains look set to be enormous.
LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman this week gave the example of a graphic designer who now has access to generative AI. Historically they might have taken two weeks to present some designs to a customer, said Reid. But now the customer expects results within 24 hours, or even on the same day….
