#Escapethenorm
No matter where you work or what you do, everyone looks forward to three-day weekends. Three day weekends are often spent with family and friends, or going out and exploring places that take a little more time and effort. Oh ya, and you get to relax from daily #worklife. Imagine if you could have a three-day weekend every week. According to Alex Williams, a professor in London, a four-day work week is not a whimsical idea. Williams says, “Beyond the possibilities for leisure, three-day weekends might also be one of the easiest steps we could take to radically reduce our environmental impact – and future-proof our economy”.
Whether from Brian Head’s lofty peak or Gooseberry’s majestic mesa, this fun-filled weekend is your ticket to the amazing vistas and backcountry mountain biking around Zion National Park!
Learn more about our Gooseberry Mesa mountain biking and Zion backcountry tour.
It has also been argued that a reduction in working hours generally correlates with reduced energy consumption and drastically lessened carbon emissions. Think about how many people are commuting to and from work around the world. Not only that, think about how much energy it takes just to keep those offices powered! The term eco-efficiency describes our ability to produce a dollar with minimal resources. To most business professionals this might sound obvious. A smart business will factor in all expenses in the cost of goods sold so that they have the highest ROI even with the little things, like a bike tube or a patch kit. These unforeseen costs and any inefficiencies can make or break a company. Three-day weekends could kill two birds with one stone; increase the value of a dollar via lessening our expenses (cutting the burn rate) to improve our economy; as well as lessening our work-based, consumption-driven impact on the environment.
In 2007 the State of Utah implemented a 4-day work week, with extended hours for state employees. In the first ten months, the state saved $1.8 million in energy costs because fewer working days, though no reduction in hours, meant less money spent on lighting, air conditioning, running computers and other equipment. This also meant that for one day a week, thousands of state employees were able to stay at home, they estimated that if they had continued that state of Utah would have reduced more than 12,000 tons of CO2 annually. Furthermore, Williams writes, “Experiments with reduced working hours at select workplaces in Sweden in 2015 reduced sickness and even increased productivity.”
After four years, that state of Utah was forced to abandon the curtailed work-week due to a number of resident complaints; see the article here: http://www.governing.com/columns/utahs-demise-of-the-four-day-work-week.html. Though the state made the change, the private sector was still working 5-days a week and still expected to have access to the same services through-out the week. The article above shows that a four-day week could see substantial progress towards an economy that does less damage to the environment.
It’s not only about productivity and money either. Fewer days “at the office” would improve American’s “work/life balance.” There is a chance it could improve our mental and physical well-being. It would also give us more time to spend doing things that inspire us in our personal lives, such as paint, read, learn to play a musical instrument. With Fridays off you would get back almost 24 hrs of your life, you might spend a fraction of this time caring for children or the elderly, and get more involved in your community.
Learn more about our 2-Day Red Rock Weekend Bike Tour
Coming to work in Vegas Monday-Friday? Well we have two-day Red Rock Canyon Weekend Warrior Trips departing on Saturdays from Las Vegas Cyclery in Summerlin. Many people overlook Las Vegas when considering a destination for outdoor adventure, but with over 100 miles of singletrack and stunning desert scenery, the Red Rock National Conservation Area is a nearby treasure well worth visiting.
There is a chance that if you are reading this blog that you would probably ride your bike more if you only had to work 4 days a week. We probably would too. We would probably start making a bike-it list of all the places we could feasibly get to in three days. Then knowing us, we probably couldn’t stop ourselves from making plans to live that way even though we don’t live in a society where 4-day work weeks are acceptable. This is what we have done at Escape Adventures, we know that most people would LOVE to go on a mountain bike tour, but they just are not sure that they can take all that time off. We offer 4 weekend tours that you can choose from; Moab, Utah, Zion & Gooseberry, Utah, Black Canyon Trail, Arizona, and Las Vegas, Nevada. Each weekend tour is a super sampler of the area. We picked our favorite rides in our favorite places to share with you. So what is there to lose? Give one a try! If you love it, you can always come back for more!
