What if We Redesigned the Workday Based on Brain Science?

If you designed the workday from scratch based on how the brain actually works, would it look anything like your calendar today?

For most people, the answer is no.

Many knowledge workers are living what feels like an "infinite workday" of back-to-back meetings, constant notifications, and an unspoken expectation to be reachable at all times. It's no surprise that so many people finish the day wired, tired, and unsure what they actually accomplished. 

At the same time, research on shorter workweeks and brain rhythms has exploded. Trials of four-day weeks suggest you can cut hours without tanking productivity, provided you redesign how time is used. Studies on attention and rest show that brains work best in waves, not in one long, flat block. And once you layer personality into the mix, it becomes obvious that there is no single “ideal” workday. There are human patterns we all share, and then there is the way each person's wiring shapes how they work best.

This article explores what those findings mean for a typical day at work. We hope it will help leaders use the latest brain and personality science to minimize burnout and increase sustainable productivity in their teams.

What Shorter Weeks Quietly Taught Us About the Workday

The four-day week is often framed as a perk, but the research tells a deeper story. In the UK's largest four-day week pilot, 61 companies and roughly 2,900 workers moved to about 32 hours a week with no loss of pay, on the condition that output stayed the same. Over six months, revenue stayed broadly stable, self-reported burnout and stress fell, sick days dropped, and more than 90% of companies chose to continue after the trial. You can see the full results in the report from Autonomy and from 4 Day Week Global.

Similar experiments in other countries, including multi-year public-sector trials in Iceland and pilots in places like Japan, have found that when hours are reduced thoughtfully, wellbeing improves and performance usually holds steady or even increases.

When you look closer, these companies didn't just chop a day off the week and hope for the best. They became ruthless about meetings, more intentional about focus time, and clearer about priorities. Time changed, but so did the design of the day.

That same logic can be applied even if your organization is not ready for a four-day week. You may not be able to change the number of days, but you can still change the rhythm of a single day.

Your Brain Needs a Break

Most calendars are built around neat one-hour blocks, but your brain runs on a different rhythm.

Throughout the day, your mind cycles through roughly 90-minute waves of higher and lower alertness. During the peak of a wave, it's easier to focus and resist distractions. After that, attention naturally dips and needs a short period of recovery before it can return to the same level.

A 2022 meta-analysis found that taking short “microbreaks” during the workday can boost vigor and reduce fatigue without harming performance, especially when they involve light movement or mental detachment from work tasks. In other words, pushing through without pauses isn't a sign of dedication — it's a recipe for fogginess and mistakes.

Brain imaging backs this up. Microsoft's Human Factors Lab used EEG caps to measure brain activity in people sitting in back-to-back virtual meetings. When there were no breaks, stress-related beta waves climbed steadily over time. When the researchers added short breaks between calls, stress markers dropped and participants went into the next meeting more focused and calm. 

If we took this seriously, we wouldn't design days as a wall of meetings from 9 to 5. We would build:

• One to three deep-focus waves of roughly 90 minutes each.
• Short, genuine breaks between waves.
• Lighter, less demanding tasks in the lower-energy stretches.

That's the brain science. The next layer is: what kind of work are you doing, and who is doing it?

Knowledge, Emotional and Physical Work Need Different Days

Even before we talk about personality, the “ideal” day depends on the kind of work someone does.

For people in knowledge work, the main strain is cognitive. The brain burns energy making decisions, solving problems, and constantly switching between tasks. A brain-friendly day here means large uninterrupted blocks for deep work, fewer unnecessary meetings, and grouping similar tasks together so the brain isn't forced to change gear every few minutes.

For those doing a lot of emotional labor — teachers, HR professionals, therapists, support roles, managers on the front line — the load is relational. They're holding space for other people's emotions all day. A recent systematic review on remote work and health found that remote and hybrid roles can increase stress, fatigue and emotional exhaustion when boundaries are blurred and recovery time is scarce, especially in people-facing jobs. An ideal day for these workers includes decompression time between intense interactions, clearer limits on after-hours contact, and routines that help them come back to themselves after being “on” for others.

For physically demanding work, fatigue shows up in muscles and joints as much as in attention. Various research suggests that adding short movement breaks can reduce discomfort and improve functioning over time. An early example is a study of meatpacking workers that introduced active microbreaks and found reduced musculoskeletal discomfort across several body regions. Here, an ideal day includes rotating tasks, pacing exertion, and building in recovery as a safety measure, not just a nice extra.

So we already have three different “ideal days” emerging: one for cognitive load, one for emotional load, and one for physical load. But within each of those, personality still changes what works best.

Same Job, Different Brains: Where Personality Comes In

Two people can share the same job title and still have very different needs for a healthy, productive day. Personality is one reason why. Truity's frameworks — the TypeFinder® test based on Myers and Briggs, the Big Five, DISC personality assessment, the Enneagram — give teams a language for those differences.

For example, in the 16-type system, Judging (J) types often feel their best when the day is structured and decisions are made early, while Perceiving types tend to thrive with more flexibility and room to respond to what emerges. This article on chronoworking explores how aligning work with your natural energy cycles can improve focus and prevent burnout, and notes that flexible, self-directed schedules often appeal more to Perceiving types.

Introversion and Extraversion change the picture again. Introverts usually recharge in quiet and may need more time between meetings and other busywork to regroup. Extraverts gain energy from interaction and can feel flat if they have too many hours of solo work. This means that meetings drain different personality types in different ways, and small changes to timing, structure and recovery can make a big difference. 

In my own experience leading a large remote team, one simple change made a big difference. I started blocking at least one no-meeting day each week. That protected day allowed me to sink into deep work in my own rhythm instead of spending the entire day in reactive mode. On other days, I created specific focus blocks and told my team, “I will respond to messages within 60 minutes.” That small act of transparency made it easier for everyone to respect focus time without feeling ignored and it gave them permission to set similar boundaries for themselves. It was a practical way to translate brain science and personality needs into everyday behavior.

Where Leaders Can Start

Seen through this lens, there is no one ideal day. There are shared human needs — rhythm, rest, and a sense of progress — and there are personality patterns that shape how each person gets there. A company-wide four-day week may not work for everyone, and most managers can't roll one out anyway. But they can start redesigning the workday in small, brain-aligned ways.

A few experiments to try:

• Protect deep-work time. Choose one or two blocks in the day where meetings are discouraged and messages don't need instant replies. Let people know they're allowed to be “heads-down” during this time.
• Make room for breaks. Build in short buffers between meetings. Encourage microbreaks during demanding work and model them yourself, so people don't feel guilty stepping away for five minutes.
• Match tasks to energy and type. Ask team members when they feel most focused, and encourage them to tackle complex work in those windows. Use personality insights to fine-tune: your Introverts may need quiet to start the day; your Extraverts may benefit from collaborative time earlier on; your highly Conscientious employees may need help declaring work “good enough” so they can switch off. Every personality system offers insights you can lean on.

Redesigning the workday based on brain science is an acknowledgment that people are not machines. When you respect the way brains and personalities actually work, you don't just get more out of your team in the short term. You create a rhythm of work that people can sustain,  and even enjoy, for much longer.