The design of our calendars is a reflection of how we aspire to live our lives.
Regular readers have heard me bitch before about our always-on/always-producing/always-striving work culture. It seems that we weren't the first to try to squeeze more time from a week. Between 1929 and 1940 Joseph Stalin conducted a "radical economic overhaul that aimed to turn the Soviet Union into a ceaseless machine of productivity and its people into tireless cogs." Spoiler: it didn't go so well. Surprise, people got burnt out, depressed and disconnected from each other.
"In 1929, the Soviet government launched the nepreryvka, a new plan that completely upended the structure of the work week as we know it today. Colloquially called the “continuous working week,” the plan dictated that the week would become five days long. Then, less than two years later, the government changed it to six days (called the shestidnevka). Eventually, they returned the week to its original seven days, but only after thoroughly shattering people’s mental model of time.
"Under the nepreryvka, the government divided workers—primarily those in factories and offices—into five groups. Laborers worked seven hours a day for four days in a row with one day off. These free days were scattered throughout the week, which meant 80% of the labor force worked at the factory while 20% remained at home at any given time. This new work week ensured that the machines never stopped running."
Article: A Failed Soviet Experiment Offers A Warning To Today’s Burnout Generation