Four-day work week – Lessons learned

http://www.triplet.fi/blog/4-day-work-week-lessons-learned/

by Tx3 • 11 years ago

89 88 11 years ago

I recently started working a 4-day work week and gained some great feedback here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9505868

Rather than use the 5th day as a casual, side project workday as it seems the author of this post has done, I decided to take the day totally off. So far it has worked fairly well, though I have had to check in a few times (as I am currently doing).

The most important factors of my decision to experiment with the new schedule was that I have a 4-month old and want to spend time with her and my wife. I was also pretty confident that I didn't actually have enough work to fill 40 hours and was spending a good amount of time reading news or whatever else from the office when I could be hanging out with my family or enjoying the outdoors.

Tx316• 11 years ago

Thank you for sharing your experience!

Taking the day totally off especially when you have a special time period going on sounds like wise move.

I think in the future all this will be more popular as there will more and more people and less work due to the automation. One solutions is to decrease amount of work single person is doing and giving the rest for someone else.

Now I'm going to read the feedback section of your question.

stephengillie4• 11 years ago

I've worked all kinds of hours in many situations. My favorite are 4x10 shifts. They give you the full pay without the extra day of commute.

Next up would be a Sun-Thurs shift, I never do anything on Sundays that I can't do Fridays, and this is great for errands, catching up, etc.

My least favorite is overnight 10p-6a. These shifts are rare, and it's easy to feel like all you do is work and sleep.

Second least favorite is 4h Wed, 12h Thurs, 12h Fri, 12h Sat. They slimmed a 6-person team down to 4, and had an unmanned window of time on Wednesday. I drew the short straw and so worked 6p-6a. HN was my playground during those hours.

bengali32• 11 years ago

What kind of gig was the 10p-6a?

tjbiddle• 11 years ago

Possibly a need for 24/7 IT support with someone always active; rather than just being paged for emergencies.

dspillett• 11 years ago

Places that need people 24/7 will generally have three 8-hour shifts: 2200-0600, 0600-1400, 1400-2200. There is some variation of the exact times (but these are the most common) and there will always be some staff who's working hours straddle the main shifts (for continuity purposes).

Most people working like this are making things in factories or performing other relatively menial work such as first-line technical support (where most of the job is following scripts), but it is not entirely uncommon for higher paid roles. One example I can mention is in chemical processing (an industry some of my family have worked in): the plants tend to run 24/7 and they have to have safety & repair engineers and so forth on site at all times no matter how automated the processes are otherwise (a good, experienced, safety/emergency engineer can command a pretty impressive salary as they are expected to know a lot of stuff in quite some detail, perform well under stressful circumstances, potentially work in very dangerous conditions, and on top of that take responsibility for the safety of others and sometimes even responsibility for the actions of others).

stephengillie4• 11 years ago

The first time around, it was overnight stocking at a grocery store. That job is truly thankless, and stocking 45 cases per hour (company minimum) is physically strenuous. The second time around was moving mailboxes and doing break/fix for Microsoft's BPOS service.

BPOS was backed by Exchange 2007, I'm pretty sure, which required manual mailbox moves - you had to offline the mailbox to move its files, and we were basically manually rebalancing the mailboxes for thousands of users as each server's local storage became full.

Obviously it's very disruptive to offline a mailbox - the user can't interact with it at all, their client usually has a copy of some of their mail, but they can't check for mail, send new mail, save anything, or search for old mail. And all incoming mail is usually queued. So we had to do this during a region's nighttime. This made trouble for our customers who worked in i.e. the USA branch of an European company; they would have to deal with EMEA outage hours, which were something like 2pm to 10pm PST.

We were a 24/7 operation with a 15-minute SLA for emergencies, and we covered the after-hours alerts for several other groups as well. We provided worldwide support for the service. Us mailbox movers worked alongside the emergency oncall break/fix engineers.

bengali32• 11 years ago

For example, next time I could take new client is after autumn and it's now June 5th.

Sounds like demand is greater than supply. A nice spot to be in for any business! Have you considered hiring help? Are you able to figure out a way to delegate some of the additional work and someday claim another day of the week?

Tx316• 11 years ago

Good question!

I'm lucky in a sense that demand is high at the moment. I haven't been able to yet convert that to high hourly price, but it's high enough to actually have a 4-day work week.

I have considered hiring help and came to conclusion that I have two options:

A) hire an employee B) get another freelancer to help

As the demand is high it also means that hiring is also difficult for me. Front-end developers have plenty of options to choose from and that basically means that I should provide good culture, benefits, salary etc. which require lot of effort from my side to do properly. Also, hiring people in Finland is quite expensive due to the "overhead": insurances, pensions etc.

Providing work to another freelancer and taking a cut might be profitable when you've >3 freelancers working on a project you've successfully written contract for.

I am bit more towards karma thinking: if I recommend someone for free, the positive action will be returned to me when the demand is lower.

mmorris2• 11 years ago

Is there a place to find a job with an employer who offers this kind of flexibility? I'm thinking particularly of software development jobs.

Edit: I know many people working 4-day work weeks are self-employed, but I'm curious for those who are looking for employment.

metadude• 11 years ago

Good question. I am a software developer in Germany and on every interview now and then I ask for the 4-day-week. It was denied 11 times so far. Most employers consider this to be a joke and cannot believe I am serious.

After half a year in a company you have a right to get into part time work, but there are some requirements that have to be met and every employer I talked to in my career so far was very... unhappy when asked about it.

Tx316• 11 years ago

Interesting! I tried to switch for 4-day work week earlier when I worked in consulting firm and the excuse was that it's harder to allocate me to a project.

I asked that isn't four days easier to allocate than five days as it means less allocation? Would it be easier if I would work 6-days week? Never got answer.

Most of the excuses are bullshit. The truth in consulting business is that they don't get as much money from you (even if you cut 1/5 from your salary).

Qantourisc• 11 years ago

That just plain sucks and is narrow sighted of them !

wsc981• 11 years ago

In The Netherlands it's easy to get 4-day work weeks. I've done it pretty much all of my professional life (>10 years).

mmorris2• 11 years ago

I've heard that, and now that I'm a parent I'm definitely jealous. Unfortunately (at least in this regard!), I'm in the US.

Tx316• 11 years ago

I know only one company that publicly has 4-day work week for all employees and that's Treehouse https://teamtreehouse.com/ and the founder Ryan Carson has good blog posts about the topic such as http://ryancarson.com/post/21708810513/4-day-week

at-fates-hands• 11 years ago

I just started on a large project with a large health care company and found myself burning through the work I had. Just this week I spoke with my manager and he agreed to allow me a 4X10 week so I can take Fridays off. The only stipulation is I have to be on any calls or meetings on Fridays.

I would be sure to ask in advance. Since there's a huge shortage of developers right now (at least in the midwest where I am) you might have a good argument to make if a company is in need and willing to negotiate.

Always, always, always ask. You never know when an employer is willing to negotiate to get a good developer on their team.

Serow225• 11 years ago

MTS.com (where I work), which makes automotive/aerospace/materials/seismic test equipment and so does a lot of embedded and GUI software engineering, has a long-standing custom of shifting to a 4-day week every year between May and September so that employees can take advantage of the short Minnesota summer season.

rmc• 11 years ago

When starting a new job, everything in the contract is negotiable. Offer to take 80% of the salary for 80% of the time.

bkjelden• 11 years ago

I have seen a number of software jobs at US government contractors (mostly defense), where 9 hour days are standard, and then you get every other Friday off.

stephengillie4• 11 years ago

Do some state laws allow you to move hours from one pay period to the other without paying overtime?

Here in WA State, over 40 hours in 1 week is mandatory 1.5x overtime pay. So 9-hour days would give you 5 hours of overtime pay one week, and short you 4 hours the other week. Many workers would be OK with that, and I guess government contractors probably just pass on the overtime to the taxpayers.

Which is probably why you rarely see that work schedule (alternating 4x9 & 5x9) outside of government.

pepijndevos2• 11 years ago

For over a year, I had a job that was 3 days a week. I loved it. I spent the other 4 days hacking on random stuff. I never had issues with sleep dept, but I did build up house keeping dept.

I don't see how people manage to do shopping when the shops are open while you are at work. Granted, some shops are open on Saturday and in the evening, but still. Who are they selling to on workdays anyway? Jobless people?

If I could find another 3-day job, I'd take it in a hartbeat.

[edit] I was mostly joking about "who are they selling to". But you'd think staggering the weekends should be more profitable.

lkiernan• 11 years ago

Retirees, students, the unemployed and the travelling businessmen/self employed that have the ability to fit a couple of hours into the middle of a workday. People that work in retail/service jobs that don't necessarily work a generic Monday-Friday. Night workers. People at companies with flexi-hours.

That said, I'd love to balance my work with the ability to not stand in queues for shops because I can only go at the same time as the majority of other people. I do much of my food shopping as close to midnight as possible and buy most other things online to avoid the crowds.

Passed a certain (lowish) threshold of income, I'd almost universally rather less hours than more money.

pepijndevos2• 11 years ago

Right? I could rent a room and buy the things I wanted and had money to spare. I wasn't even making that much money. Why would I work many long days to no personal benefit?

Except maybe to save for my pension and/or buy luxury items and toys I don't need. Only if I had a significant other and offspring would it make sense to make more money.

burkemw3• 11 years ago

I've tried grocery shopping at off hours, especially late night as you mentioned.

I was surprised to find the grocery effectively just as crowded, not by people but by re-stocking efforts. Lots of pallets left in the aisles with stock waiting to be put on a shelf.

The checkout lines are certainly shorter, though.

encloser• 11 years ago

Who are they selling to on workdays anyway? Jobless people?

There are a whole lot of people in the world who's jobs are not "9-5" office jobs. Also on any given day there are a bunch of people who took the day off. And then there are the elderly, medical leave, etc.

TeMPOraL• 11 years ago

The question is, how many of them are there compared to the typical "9-5" type which seems to compose the majority of western societies? And grocery stores are somewhat understandable, but who the hell goes to banks during workday, so that it makes sense for them to be open only Mon-Fri, 9-5?

JuanSoto• 11 years ago

I intern three days a week right now. I love it because I spend the rest of the days self-learning and working on my projects as well as helping out my family. Unfortunately I think this current job will be the last time I am able to do this.

emir_• 11 years ago

Um selling to people who don't work regular hours? There are plenty of people who work hours that are not Monday-Friday 9am-6pm, you know that, right?

gutnor• 11 years ago

Well, supermarket and even local shop are opened 7 days a week, sometimes 24 hours a day where I live.

The stuff that I never understood is the administration. Opened from 9:30 to 11:30 then from 15:30 to 16:30 on appointment only. ( Embassy for those wondering, although, recently, they have started to process most of the shit via email and scan )

In my home country when you have difficulties paying your electricity bill they install you a token meter. You need to buy those special token in 1 location of the city (200K inhabitants) in a 2 hours period in the middle of the afternoon 3 times a week ( not the week-end of course ).You need good planning skills to be poor.

Kluny2• 11 years ago

As a nine-to-fiver, it makes it hella easy to be frugal since I have to plan a half hour block of time a week in advance if I ever want to buy something in person. I do a lot more research and make sure I get the best price, and buy less stuff overall. Not so good for the shops though.

s73v3r• 11 years ago

I feel that advantage goes away once you discover Amazon.

cossatot• 11 years ago

I think this is actually a big reason for the ascendance of big-box stores, esp. Lowes and Home Depot, and auto parts chains like O'Reilly. It's not particularly that they offer lower prices or more selection, it's that they're open after 6 pm and on Sundays when the DIYers are DIYing. Mom and pop might not have had the resources to make the experiment to stay open late for long enough for people to internalize that they were open.

irl_zebra• 11 years ago

I start my day with a 1.5 hour walk with my dog Fanny
I normally get rid of sleep debt on Friday by sleeping a bit longer than on working day
lunch with my wife
travel to martial arts training

Sounds like this person is scheduling an extra day for networking/meeting clients/etc., then filling the day with "day off" type of stuff like 1.5 hour dog walks and sleeping in, then complaining that the "4-day work week" doesn't work.

Am I the only one seeing the disconnect here?

Tx316• 11 years ago

I'm sorry if I was misleading, my intention was not say that 4-day work week doesn't work.

I just didn't have to use the day for meetings like I originally planned and instead I was able to write that blog post that you just observed.

scottyab• 11 years ago

I didn't read it as that you were saying a 4-day work week doesn't work. Thanks for sharing.

mordocai• 11 years ago

I also read this as just describing how it worked for you, not saying that it didn't work. I guess some changes to the post might help though since people seem to be getting that impression.

vosper• 11 years ago

No, I'm with you on this.

The original plan was to use the fifth day for non-billable work such as searching clients, meeting with people, doing mandatory paperwork, writing blog posts, doing something that would later generate passive income etc.

If you're not billing on the 5th day, but you're still doing work, then you don't have a 4 day work week.

flanbiscuit• 11 years ago

this is exactly what I thought when I read this. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the whole idea of a 4-day work week is that we can get all our work done in 4 days and then essentially have a 3-day weekend. It's a 3-days off thing, not an extra day to work on things you couldn't do in the other 4 days. Plus his status as a freelancer already puts him in a different class of people that has full control over their hours. I believe the 4-day work week movement is targeted to people that HAVE to work 5 days because they are working full-time for a company that mandates 5 days of work.

m_t• 11 years ago

I don't think I read a complaint in this post?

moey• 11 years ago

I'm seeing a disconnect alright, but it's from the article and your comment. In no way did I interpret that article as saying "the 4-day work week doesn't work."

Although, if you're working on the 5th day, it's not really a four day work week. My Fridays at my regular job are almost as relaxed.

Tx316• 11 years ago

It's a bit fuzzy what is work and what isn't.

For example: writing a blog post might be work for someone, side-projects can be done for business purposes or for just hobby etc.

What I try to do is things that interest me and get joy out of it.

mfoy_• 11 years ago

You hit the nail on the head, I read the first paragraph and thought the same thing.

The only thing a 4-day work week is guaranteed to get you is a 3-day weekend. What you do with that time is entirely on you.

krisdol2• 11 years ago

I don't think he said it doesn't work, let alone that he's no longer doing it.

I also feel like a 4 day work-week for employees and a 4-day work-week for freelancers ought to be pretty different. You're going to have to find clients, do paperwork, and other unpaid managerial duties as a freelancer regardless of how long your work week. If it's 5 days, guess what? That stuff is eating into your weekends and nights.

run4yourlives22• 11 years ago

Agreed. Most people take care of their "sleep debt" on the weekends. That's partly why they are called weekends after all.

rifung2• 11 years ago

Care to explain? What does the word "weekend" have to do with sleep debt?

heynk• 11 years ago

For those asking about how to get a four day work week - I've negotiated to a 4 day work week once, and do a 20 hour week a second time. Each time I just said it's what I wanted to do and the employer was on board, but each time was also after working full time for over a year. I'd try that route instead of looking for a new job that would do 4 days, as that seems pretty uncommon.

QuercusMax• 11 years ago

A coworker at my last job did something like that - he had been there several years, and asked to work only 4 days a week for 80% pay. I don't think he's ended up getting as much out of it as he hoped, though.

sputknick• 11 years ago

I've decided if I ever start my own business we will work Mon-Sat 4 or 5 hours a day (for a grand total of 24-30 hours a week). Especially in our industry I feel like productivity falls off after 4 hours of work. Plus Saturday sounds like a great day to get random stuff done. I know that kind of schedule isn't for everyone, but I think enough people would appreciate it that I could still get qualified workers. What do you all think?

Tx316• 11 years ago

For me it would be little bit more difficult than 4-day work week. I do agree that 7-8 hours of programming per day isn't optimal for concentration, but having a possibility to have extended weekend is a big plus for me.

I am sure you would find people that adapt to it.

One thing I am wondering is that should everyone work on the same schedule? I am not talking about night shift type of things, but there should be more than enough overlap between working schedules if one works 9-5 Mon - Fri?

saiya-jin• 11 years ago

Ever considered just taking a long break (ie 2 hours), spend it wither with some intense physical training & cool down afterwards (ie on some lunch)? In this way, you might be able to keep creativity & concentration high in afternoon too.

It might be just me, but I prefer whole days off compared to shorter more frequent work. Rason - I enjoy trips in nature, and all kinds of full-day or even full-weekend events (hiking, mountains, travel, whatever). The perfect situation for me would be 3 days off, 4 days work. The day I have to work, even for few hours, is already "taken" from me by work.

tomjen3• 11 years ago

Dunno, having to work on a Saturday drastically eliminates your ability to visit family that is more than a couple of hours away and if you have kids you can have to arrange for somebody to take care of them. Plus if you have a commute that is, say, an hour that is now a much bigger part of your working hours that if you only worked five days a week.

Overall I wouldn't go for it.

SpendBig2• 11 years ago

Same here, also having a 4-day work-week planning to run some sort of side-project. Actually all i do is fixing stuff of previous side-projects, setting op PoC's for new projects en creating a big pile of poo.

Besides that, dogs, cats and child need attention all day long, so sitting at home does not work at 1 day a week.

Now i am planning to give all that up, and just add the day to my work-week.

A full time job, without sideprojects, sounds more comfortable than a mess of private-work-life. It keeps your head spinning all day, not reaching the goals you imagined.

I am not able to take all day working on my own projects, so this seems like the only option to play safe and clear my head.

Tx316• 11 years ago

Is there a possibility to go and do your stuff in other place than home? Library, cafe, co-working space perhaps?

SpendBig2• 11 years ago

Tried that, but it is to distracting, i also dont get how people manage to work at a place where all sort of people work on different stuff. Sounds more like a silicon valley/hipster kind of thing to me, which i am not.

I also tried to do it at the office where i work, but you can imagine that you will not be working on your own projects

djrogers• 11 years ago

"Besides that, dogs, cats and child need attention all day long, so sitting at home does not work at 1 day a week."

Perhaps you can have a serious discussion with your spouse about your shared goals for the 5th day? It sounds like you two aren't very well aligned on it. If you were better aligned and could set some boundaries around work/family, you'd be able to make this work.

*source - worked from home for 15 years, 12 of them married, 9 with kids. It's the best thing that ever happened to me for quality of life, but it does require boundaries and a shared goal.

jkot2• 11 years ago

My free day is normally on Friday's and first thing I do is get rid of possible sleep debt that has been slowly increasing between Monday and Thursday

Perhaps write how much time you actually spend working. 4 days could also mean 60 hours.

Tx316• 11 years ago

Good point! About 30 hours per week.

I'll update the blog post also.

jkot2• 11 years ago

Where is the sleep deficit comming from? I work 7 days a week, sometimes crazy hours in different time-zones, but dont have this problem.

dan_blanchard• 11 years ago

"All of them are your past decisions you need to live with and all of them require attention."

Wow, this guy's wife must love being though of as a "past decision [he] need[s] to live with." Maybe it's just me, but that strongly implies "past decision you would not make again."

Tx316• 11 years ago

Haha, Touché! I actually gave this text to my wife for proof-reading and didn't receive any negative comments on that sentence!

run4yourlives22• 11 years ago

That you know of at least. :-)

toomuchtodo• 11 years ago

As someone else who has written about my wife and the time commitment involved, may I suggest "obligations I've previously committed to" as an alternate wording :)

ams6110• 11 years ago

Yeah I thought that was funny too... the larger point though is that there is no way to take a "day off" and have it be totally yours, unless you otherwise live as a hermit.

nonce42• 11 years ago

I've had a 4-day work week (working 80%) for a while and it's great. If your circumstances allow you to do this (and I recognize that most people can't), I strongly recommend it. I've been able to do a lot more on side projects (like blog posts). It also gives me much better "work-life balance" and more time to spend with my family - I know it's a cliche, but kids will be gone before you know it so spend time with them while you can.

A few disadvantages: First, I only get paid 80% as much. Second, it took a fair bit of effort at work to set this up at work; management was supportive, but they'd rather I worked 100% and it took multiple levels of approval. Third, this basically puts me off the career fast track. Fourth, from a social/cultural point of view, people don't really understand working 80% and I find it's easier not telling people about it (thus the throwaway).

grecy3• 11 years ago

First, I only get paid 80% as much

When you consider tax, you're getting more than that.

ghaff3• 11 years ago

Note though that your fully burdened cost to the company is something like your 1.3-1.5x your salary and things like health insurance are more or less a fixed cost to the employer independent of how many hours you work.

jcroll• 11 years ago

The original plan was to use the fifth day for non-billable work such as searching clients, meeting with people, doing mandatory paperwork, writing blog posts, doing something that would later generate passive income etc.

That's work.

krisdol2• 11 years ago

Yeah, but it's work he'd have to do no matter the working week. If you spend 5 days a week on contract work, the rest of the week (weekend, nights) will be these non-billable duties.

shoover• 11 years ago

It's a five day work week, now better organized for getting everything done and staying sane.

Tx316• 11 years ago

The mandatory paperwork in case of freelancer is quite minimal effort. I have an accountant to whom I need to provide material. Currently in the paper form, but soon switching to electronic. Gathering the material takes about 2 hrs/ month.

Billing takes 5 minutes (I use web application called Zervant) and checking that the payment is received takes few minutes.

Then there are "random" stuff like updating insurance, meeting people (few times per month) etc.

Not that much stuff really.

bmj• 11 years ago

Depending on your life-situation you might have a better-half, kids, pets, housework etc. All of them are your past decisions you need to live with and all of them require attention.

I'm sure this wasn't the author's intention, but, gee, imagine your wife or kids reading that. Kinda makes it sound like those things always must take a back seat to work.

Edited to add: sorry, didn't see `dan_blanchard's comment.

Tx316• 11 years ago

Heh, I see your point. See dan_blanchards comment and my answer to it.

I'm not native English speaker and by mistake made it sound bit more dramatic than I originally thought.

brianwawok• 11 years ago

I can't work at full stream with any sleep debt. Seems worth it to sleep properly all 7 nights of a week, then incur debt Sun-Thurs to be "fixed" Fri-Sat...

Seems not that healthy either to be chronically sleep deprived.

andrea_sdl• 11 years ago

As mentioned in the thread, only TeamTreeHouse and Basecamp (this one only when you are there for a while) allow to have a 4 day workweek.

I strongly believe it will be a good asset for any company on many level.

First: If everyone is working 4 days a week it means you have to fill the gap. This means that knowledge must be shared and that you always have a backup plan no matter what.

This is great for the company because it allows better work, and a more relaxed mindset because you're not tied to anyone and you always have an employee ready to help you.

On the other side, the employees are more happy, have more free time and mind.

I don't know if every company could do this, but I sure do know it might be worth a try if your business allows this

fsk• 11 years ago

For a year, I had two part-time contracts, one for 3 days a week and one for 1 day a week. It was nice to have an extra relaxation day per week. It wound up ending when I got a full-time job for a 30% hourly increase.

It also made it easy to interview for a new job. I scheduled all my interviews on the off day.

Four-day work week – Lessons learned

Related Stories