State a week of work as one number.
One normal professional week — forty hours of ordinary skilled work — is 40 PEJ, a PEJ Index of 100. Everything else follows by multiplication: a specialist week, a package of creative work, an agent doing the first draft with a person checking it. Humans and machines can finally quote the same figure.
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Ordinary skilled week40 PEJ
Coefficients to remember3
Econometrics required0
Minutes to your first figure2
What one PEJ is
A PEJ is one hour of ordinary skilled professional work, at ordinary intensity, done by a competent person. It is a unit of delivered capability, not a unit of clock time — which is why it survives contact with creative work, with specialists, and with machines.
PEJRMC = 0.50 R + 1.00 M + 1.75 C
The insight that unlocks PEJ estimation: those three points don’t have to describe duration at all. They can describe character. Replace best/most-likely/worst with Repetitive / Mixed / Creative (R–M–C): of the hours this package will consume, how many are repetitive execution, how many mixed professional work, how many genuinely creative? Estimate three hour-counts instead of one, apply the level coefficients directly (R × 0.50 + M × 1.00 + C × 1.75), and you obtain expected PEJ even while total duration remains unknown.
R — Repetitive
Repetitive execution, routine tasks, and structured processes at 0.50×.
M — Mixed
Mixed professional work and skilled standard execution at 1.00×.
C — Creative
Genuinely creative work, novel problems, and unscoped ideation at 1.75×.
R–M–C PEJ Calculator
Estimate three hour-counts by character instead of guessing duration. Move the sliders to price the package.
{{ pej }}PEJ
PEJ Index {{ index }} — {{ verdict }}
{{ working }}
{{ note }}
{{ ctaLabel }}The R–M–C coefficient card
| R — Repetitive | 0.50× |
|---|---|
| Routine execution | 0.50 |
| Checklists & templates | 0.50 |
| Structured replication | 0.50 |
| M — Mixed | 1.00× |
|---|---|
| Standard professional work | 1.00 |
| Problem solving & synthesis | 1.00 |
| Contextual drafting | 1.00 |
| C — Creative | 1.75× |
|---|---|
| Genuinely creative work | 1.75 |
| Novel / unscoped exploration | 1.75 |
| Architecture & invention | 1.75 |
PEJRMC = 0.50 R + 1.00 M + 1.75 C. Estimate three hour-counts instead of one, apply the level coefficients directly, and you obtain expected PEJ even while total duration remains unknown.
“The first meeting where nobody argued about whether two weeks meant two weeks.”
— A team lead, after one quarter on the index
Asked before
Is this just billable hours again?
No. An hour is an input; a PEJ is delivered capability. Two people can spend the same forty hours and hand over 32 and 64 PEJ — and the difference is stateable, not a matter of reputation.
How does an agent get a number?
By the same multiplication, with oversight priced in. That is the point: once both sides of the delegation decision are in PEJ, you compare them instead of arguing about them.
Will my team resist being measured?
Most teams find it works the other way. The index is a defence of capacity, not a productivity score — it is what you bring to the meeting where someone asks why the quarter took a quarter.
Do I need the book to use the app?
No. The app gives the figure; the book gives you the sentence you say when someone challenges it, plus the worked examples behind every coefficient.
40 Hours = ? AI
How to convert your 40-hour week into AI measures. Estimation, comparison, AI pricing, delegation and defence — every formula through a worked example, every coefficient on a card.
Available now on Amazon in Paperback and Kindle editions.
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