I can't open that, but I'm all for it if an 8-day-week means we get 3-day weekends!

Huh, I thought my notes were on public view. c/p:

So, I had an idea while I was thinking over the past couple of weeks. I read a little bit on the Internet and found some confirmation that it wasn't completely insane, so I've decided I'm going to try to implement it. If something seems off about my waking, sleeping, working, etc. hours, you'll know it's because as of this coming Monday, March 12, 2012, I am implementing an 8-day week schedule to replace my existing 7-day week schedule.

8-day weeks? What?

The idea is, conceptually, very simple, but the effects are extremely profound. There are 168 hours in a week, divided into seven 24-hour blocks. We call these "days." We base our entire concept of time in the contemporary era on the day: we go to work for x hours a day, at y times in a day, we have class and everything else scheduled on days, etc. Essentially, societal understanding of time boils down to two points:

1. 24-hour blocks are the "natural" blocks of time.
2. Humans base (or should base) their days on the "natural" blocks of time.

But step back for a minute. How often do you find yourself saying "I wish there were more than 24 hours in the day / seven days in the week"? All too often, I know that I find myself pressed for time. Naturally, I would like more of it... or at least to experience more time. On a basic, day-to-day level, experiencing more time means more down time for recreational or educational activities, more work time to get studying or homework done, etc. And on a more deep, fundamental level: I, personally, do not expect to experience existence after my death, in any form of an afterlife or what have you. The thought of death honestly scares me sometimes, as I'm sure it does everyone, and the ability to "extend" my life - whether in perception or in reality - affords me the perception or reality of additional existence, a resource invaluable in itself. It may even lead to accelerated mental development and maturity, as mentally I will feel like I am growing faster than I would be in the 24-hour cycle.

So there's a lot of incentive to find a way to extend my time, or perception of time. Obviously extending time itself is largely out of my control - I can eat healthy, work out, do all the right things and get a few years and good health for it, but there's no trick to extend my biological clock beyond that. So the only way I can add on to my time on Earth from here is to change my perception of time and perceive time longer than I would before. I thus have to change one of those premises in a way which will allow me to perceive the experience of additional time.

So which one of those premises can we change? It's clearly not the first: the 24-hour day is the "natural" day, if we understand a day to be a base cyclical period of time determined by the rotation or revolution of the Earth in relation to the Sun. It's the measured time the Earth takes to rotate, so 7 AM will, roughly, measure the same amount of sunlight every day of the year. (Of course it doesn't actually, because of the revolution of the Earth, but it is within reason the "same" amount.)

The premise that must change, then, is the notion that a "day" must be the natural day. And, just as we, as humans, have overcome our deterministic dependence on such basic natural concepts as weather and climate, I see no reason, on its face, why I cannot choose to use a different timeline from the "natural" one provided by the cosmos.

Why the day, as opposed to the hour or the month or year? The best way to impact your perception of time is to take the basic unit - a unit large enough such that individual changes aren't dramatic to the point of distraction, yet small enough that individual changes are dramatic to the point of noticeability. Changing the length of the hour or, god forbid, the minute or second would be distracting; and, furthermore, we have very specific expectations when an "hour" or "minute" or "second" is called for. With a day and longer, we don't have as precise of expectations. But, at the same time, I find that I don't think in "months" or "years" very much. I do sometimes, of course, maybe more than most, but never in a very immediate and impacting way. Perhaps when I'm older I will, but for the moment, at least, creating, say, 15-month years lasting 24 days will be too gradual, and 12-year decades unnoticeable (not to mention nonsensical, as a decade, owing to the deca- prefix, refers to 10). But the day is long enough that we don't have precise expectations for its length that would be distracting if altered, while being short enough that changing their length is noticeable and impactful. Hence, I am choosing the day as my unit to change.

How will this work? Well, for the spring semester, admittedly, it probably won't be that big an impact. Given that I have 55 hours of class and work a week, all selected according to the 24-hour day, it is probably inevitable that I will be working or in class across days. (For instance, if I simply took the 21-hour day schedule and implemented it right now, I would be working at the library from Day-1-17:00 to Day-2-01:00, as I work until 10 PM, the 22nd hour of the day.) However, I will still be able to create a sleep schedule based around the 8-day week; and though its consistency will be lacking this semester, by setting it up now, I will give myself time to adjust to it in advance of the summer (when I will probably only be working 20 hours a week, and thus perfectly able to schedule work around that schedule and test it out), and I will be able to set up subsequent semesters' classes to this new schedule instead, so once I get the schedule switched and start operating within it, everything should be fine.

And aside from having a very strange schedule compared to other people, there aren't any drawbacks that I can perceive - and that drawback is pretty minor as it is, considering that I work 12-8 AM on weekend nights anyway (read: my schedule is already very strange compared to other people). Compared to the advantages of literally perceiving myself living longer (the title of this note reflects this: if the average American, who lives to about eighty, were to make this change at age 20, as I am, then s/he would perceive having lived to 88 instead of 80), this drawback is incredibly minimal. We're talking about perceiving a 10% longer life. That's *huge.*

What do these days look like? Just imagine ending each day at 21 hours, instead of 24. We'll start the week on "Sunday." Here's your 24-hour day week:

7 day week - 24-hour day time
Sunday - 00:00-24:00
Monday - 00:00-24:00
Tuesday - 00:00-24:00
Wednesday - 00:00-24:00
Thursday - 00:00-24:00
Friday - 00:00-24:00
Saturday - 00:00-24:00

And here's my 21-hour day week:

8 day week - 21-hour day time - 24-hour day time
Sunday - 00:00-21:00 - 00:00-21:00
Monday - 00:00-21:00 - 21:00-18:00
Tuesday - 00:00-21:00 - 18:00-15:00
Wednesday - 00:00-21:00 - 15:00-12:00
Thursday - 00:00-21:00 - 12:00-09:00
Friday - 00:00-21:00 - 09:00-06:00
Saturday - 00:00-21:00 - 06:00-03:00
Simonday* - 00:00-21:00 - 03:00-24:00

* - because who doesn't want a day named after himself/herself?!

So, factoring in my classes and work shifts:
Sunday - desk shift 0-8; library shift 17-22
Monday - class 1240-1430; library 17-22
Tuesday - class 1040-1330, 1640-1800; desk 1400-1600
Wednesday - class 1240-1430; library 17-22
Thursday - class 1040-1330, 1640-1800; desk 1400-1600
Friday - class 1240-1430
Saturday - desk 0-8; library 13-1600

This then becomes:
Sunday - desk shift 00:00-08:00; library shift 17:00-21:00
Monday - library shift 00:00-01:00; class 15:40-17:30; library shift 20:00-21:00
Tuesday - library shift 00:00-04:00; class 16:40-19:30; desk shift 20:00-21:00
Wednesday - desk shift 00:00-01:00; class 01:40-03:00
Thursday - class 00:40-02:30; library shift 05:00-10:00
Friday - class 01:40-04:30; desk shift 05:00-07:00; class 07:40-09:00
Saturday - class 06:40-08:30; desk shift 18:00-21:00
Simonday - desk shift 00:00-05:00; library shift 10:00-15:00

As you can see, my current slate of classes and work do not fit well into this schedule, so the effect will be minimal, at least for now. But consider the summer: I can more or less choose my hours at the library (the only thing on this slate that will continue during the summer), provided they're in 4-hour chunks during the library's open hours. Say I were to choose to work, according to the 24-hour schedule, at:

Monday: 11 AM - 3 PM
Tuesday: 8 AM - 12 PM
Wednesday: 6 PM - 10 PM
Thursday: off
Friday: off
Saturday: 5 PM - 9 PM
Sunday: 2 PM - 6 PM

This schedule seems rather inconsistent and difficult to track on a 24-hour cycle. (Not to mention that five days in a row is kind of a bummer.) But converted to 21 hours, it's:

Monday: 11:00-15:00
Tuesday: 11:00-15:00
Wednesday: off
Thursday: 03:00-07:00
Friday: off
Saturday: off
Sunday: 11:00-15:00
Simonday: 11:00-15:00

Suddenly, not only is it incredibly consistent (would be totally so if the library were open very late on Wednesday night/Thursday morning), it also looks much more favorable. (4 days of work, 1 off, 1 work, 2 off... not only are they not all blocked in a row, which tends to lead to burnout, but I also get an extra day off - the wonders of a properly-planned 8 day week!)

And then of course scheduling is complicated, and I can't check course listings yet so I couldn't give examples of how that will work. But if I need to temper it during school, so be it; I still think this is a very good idea, as even if I only get to implement it in full during the summers, it's still very beneficial, as I've explained above.

So that's how it works and why I'm doing it. I'm going to keep track of my experiences as I go along, which someone someday may find interesting. If you're interested in trying this... plan it out carefully before you start, alright? It's not easy to just throw off something as fundamental as your experience of time.

tl;dr

A poor moron tries hard to end up in a lunatic asylum. Should be fun to watch.

I think that was supposed to go in NigeeBaby's thread

I would instead favor the 28-hour day model. See http://xkcd.com/320/

Eck, less days reverses the whole "I feel like I'm living longer" effect. Whatever works though.

Simon day? lol

you just blew my mind

But now you have less time in a day to do what you want because you are presumably eating, sleeping and working the same but with 3 hours less free time each day. Looks like an interesting psychology experiment though.

Correct - the idea is that because we (or at least I) don't have as precise a sense of time when it comes to how long my day is (21 hours feels pretty long and not really noticeably shorter than 24), the lost time each day feels smaller than the aggregate total represented in the eighth day.

It's reminiscent of the idea of diminishing returns, applied to hours in the day.

Wait how does that respond to Caballo Blaco's thing?

PE are you just saying this will feel like you live longer but in truth you will actually end up wasting some time?

Cause if that's what you're saying more power to you lol no hate, I'm just not sure what you're saying.

Also.. idk a 21 hour day could seem pretty short.

When I'm awake for 14 instead of 17 hours, I can notice it. For me that's a difference between a "long" day (or productive day) and a short day (or pitifully wasted day)

For instance. I just woke up an hour ago at noon. I will probably party with my friends tonight until about 4:00. 14 hour day. Totally unproductive.

Though looks like your Saturday and Simonday are your most normal days, so I guess you could still party at the times normal people do. So that's good.

No, on the contrary I think it will be *more* efficient (though efficiency isn't the main point). What I'm saying is that, at least for me, the difference between a 21-hour day and a 24-hour day is pretty minimal. I sleep six hours a day at the most, for reference, and so consequently we're talking about the difference between 15 or 18 waking hours. I feel like from my own experience that the last 3 hours between 15 and 18 are probably not as noticeable as, y'know, a whole new day. (And I guess going back to the efficiency thing, by 15 hours of straight consciousness I'm starting to get worn out, meaning that whatever I'm doing in those last 3 hours is probably going to be better done if saved for a new day instead of remaining awake.)

There shouldn't be any time wasted as you're not gaining or losing any time within the week. You lose a bit during each day until the 8th day, at which point it is all recovered. But the perception of living longer should still be there provided that the 24-hour day, 7-day week model stays around (as one would expect it should...).

Due to the fucked up sleep schedule, you are actually more likely to lead yourself to illness on a regular basis. The human body is biologically tied to the natural day because we evolved within the natural day.

And we haven't gotten aroudn the seasons. Can you grow potatos in Idaho in December? No. Crops (at least decent ones not grown in hot houses) are still oriented around the seasons and the farmers with them.

Both valid points, Draugnar. To be clear, I should probably note before answering the objections that I am not advocating that everyone go take this up and do it. In fact, if that were to happen, and this day were to become the standard, the entire effect of perceiving longer life through different time divisions compared to other people would be lost entirely. It is very much dependent on others not doing it and the existing order of weeks and months being kept intact.

To the first - I work 12-8 AM Saturday and Sunday, and otherwise already have a royally screwed sleep schedule. I actually feel like this schedule might give me *more* consistency than my current one. I wouldn't argue this as a general notion that works for everyone, though, and it certainly might not be more effective in the long run for most people.

And the second - since weeks are the same length (168 hours), just subdivided differently, this shouldn't affect seasonal occurrences for farming. Not that farming is a worry for me anyway, I'm a few generations removed from the Oklahoma farm :p

Your Thursday would ruin any farmer so don't even try it. Are you insane yet?

That's true, it is rather difficult to do farming work at night. Which is fine - farmers don't have to adopt this schedule. In fact, as dependent on daylight as they are, it's pretty clearly better that they don't. One of the key premises to this was that the person can actually afford to shake off dependence on the natural day, which means dependence on daylight, and since a farmer clearly could not owing to the nature of his profession, he wouldn't be expected to do so.

As for insanity, I'm sick, and up for 24 hours with 2 hours' rest during them, having spent the past 10.5 hours working, and with another 6 to go before I can sleep (which will probably be another 11 hours away). It's certainly conceivable.

Here's another point to consider:

You say you want to do this to "extend your life" at least metaphorically or perceptually. I have no issue with that, but if half of this life is spent while everyone else is asleep/when it is dark, is that really extra life that you want?

/trying to keep up with the rest of the world and their old-fangled 7day week

I, too, believe circadian rhythms aren't a thing, because:

8fold must've fallen aslepp when it got dark outside...

"You say you want to do this to "extend your life" at least metaphorically or perceptually. I have no issue with that, but if half of this life is spent while everyone else is asleep/when it is dark, is that really extra life that you want?"

A fair amount of it is already spent like that, so there's not that much loss for me personally. I don't sleep much... I've allotted six hours in the 21-hour day to sleep, and I fear that might be too much considering my body's general lack of need for sleep.

And in any case, I can spend that time further developing myself and my personal interests. It's not lost time.

48 hours sleep a week is more than I get now unless I go to bed early for some reason. 1 AM to 7 AM is my weeknight sleep schedule and 2 AM to 10 AM my typical weekend for 46 in a week.

Yeah, and considering when some of the times fall (because despite my decision, I *do* actually like having my schedule mostly non-conflicting with my friends'...), I might decide to cut it back. I mean, the recommended is 6 hours to 18 hours awake in a 24-hour day, minimum... approximate ratio that translates would be 5 hours to 15 (20, closest I'll get with a 1:3 ratio as 21 doesn't divide into 4). We'll see, it's not like this is final or anything.

Monday starts in one hour and 7 minutes! This is exciting!

21 / 4=5.25 So make it 5.25 to 15.75.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphasic_sleep

Check out the Uberman sleep schedule

also google it

Are you insane yet?

Nope!