# Come In and Fix Something By:: [[Ross Jackson]] 2023-11-07 Work is broadly still defined by relics of the Industrial Revolution. This can be seen by the tight coupling of hours worked and money earned. Even on a salary, the expectation is generally to work a forty-hour work week (or more). This is so ingrained in our society that we have the common saying: time is money. How much could things be different if people were paid a set amount and they worked when something was needed? Under this model, one would come into the office (physically or virtually) and fix (or do) something. If there weren’t anything that needed to be done, they would do something else. Relax, play, read, rest, travel, go to a coffeehouse, or whatever came to mind. Maybe this would happen several days in a row. Occasionally, there would be something that was really needed. When that happened, the work would become the primary focus, and it would be executed with dedicated focus. The current time-based model is outdated. People find or create work that justifies working and being paid, but it is unclear how often that work is needed. It is busy work. A different model would allow people to work when it was required and organizationally valued and to relax when it isn’t. Businesses wouldn’t like this approach, at least not initially, because they think they get more from their employees from the current model. And maybe they do. But as AI will show us, having more isn’t necessarily better or advantageous. Is it better to have one report that is read or twenty reports that are ignored? Less work generated means less to sift through to find what is important and less work to edit. Economics teaches more of a good is better than less. That model permeates much of what we do. Work might be more impactful if people came in and fixed something when needed and enjoyed life when it wasn’t. #### Related Items [[Work]] [[Paradigms]] [[Organization]] [[Joy]] [[Time]] [[Economics]] [[16 Hours of Work per Week]]