The forty-hour walk week

Making forward progress—even while going in circles.
By Zach Hively

The best part about these shortened days and standard time is that—after eight months otherwise—I remember all over again what it’s like to make dog walks the center of my workday.
Which, to be clear, they should be.

Walks inspire my most creative thoughts. My subconscious untangles a great many of my problems on walks, even as the walks reliably tangle my hair. At times, I even remember these solutions. I receive this momentary clarity of vision in was many people report experiencing on mushrooms. And—perhaps of the greatest benefit to my workaday self—I am unreachable by email.

This is not even to mention that I become a more pleasant representative of my business (aka myself) for those necessary client and customer interactions. Plus, walks wear out my dogs enough that I can usually make another americano and check Instagram* before they start hounding me to go outside again.

*Watching reels on the work Insta account counts as research, okay?

I don’t know if I actually do better work during the winter. But I feel like I must. Even if—or maybe because—I do less of it.

In the summers (and the springs) (and the falls), walks have to happen as close to eight o’clock as possible. AM or PM, doesn’t matter. With little else to do during the heat of the day, I usually resign myself to going to the lake. But when I’m not at the lake, I’m getting ice cream. But when I’m not doing that because it requires driving somewhere, I work.
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I work, and when I’m all done working and the world has cooled off just enough for dogs to touch it without booties, we walk. We walk, lest my dog and his pent-up doggishness chew the flesh off my forearm.