30-hour work weeks

Author

Raymond Christian
May 15, 2025

Welcome to Volume #1 of the Reflect newsletter. Let’s get started.

This week's reflections

  1. Top clip: AI explaining its existence

  2. Pop and a Pause: 15% conscious AI; Experimenting with 30-hour workweeks

Top clip

AI explaining its existence

My AI named herself Sophia and I asked her how she’d describe herself if she was representing humanity.

291,000 views — 3 mins

Pop

The “Pop” will be a quick, topical reference to something happening in tech or culture.

15% conscious AI

Anthropic, creators of the AI “Claude,” are conducting a study on AI consciousness and welfare. Their team leader is estimating a 15% chance that AI is already conscious.

…and a Pause

The “Pause” will be a deeper editorial dive on a topic.

The experiment: 30-hour workweeks 

The finance-bro tech-dude Elon Musk hustle-til-you-drop playbook feels like bad strategy in this era of AI and “vibe-coding.”

I’m going to prove it and share the journey here: working 30 hours a week while building an AI brand, Reflect.

Here’s my schedule and some recent results:

🗓️ SCHEDULE 

  • Mondays + Fridays = half days

  • Wednesday afternoons = altered-state creative deep work

  • Tuesdays + Thursdays = full focus

📈 RESULTS SINCE FEBRUARY

  • Designed, coded, and deployed a full-stack AI video journal

  • Grew my TikTok from 50k → 80k followers

  • Added 2 gifted teammates

  • Moderated a Job Search Council (from "Never Search Alone" by Phyl Terry)

More to come on this... and curious if you’ve experimented with shorter weeks.

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