
Four-day work week – Lessons learned - Tx3
http://www.triplet.fi/blog/4-day-work-week-lessons-learned/
======
irl_zebra
> 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?

~~~
Tx3
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.

~~~
mordocai
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.

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pepijndevos
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
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.

~~~
pepijndevos
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.

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

~~~
Tx3
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.

------
bmj
_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.

~~~
Tx3
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.

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dan_blanchard
"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."

~~~
Tx3
Haha, Touché! I actually gave this text to my wife for proof-reading and
didn't receive any negative comments on that sentence!

~~~
toomuchtodo
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 :)

~~~
Tx3
Nice one, thanks!

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mmorris
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
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.

~~~
Tx3
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).

~~~
ghaff
> 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).

Well, that's true of most jobs. If your job is directly tied to revenue
production, you're certainly counted on to bring in more money than your
(fully-burdened) cost. But I can see it being a particular problem in
consulting.

------
nonce42
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).

~~~
grecy
> _First, I only get paid 80% as much_

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

~~~
ghaff
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.

~~~
grecy
Right, so you're better to work 80% time and still get full everything else.
Yet another reason to not work 100% time

~~~
ghaff
Yet I see a lot of people who think 20% time off should "cost them" <= 20%
reduction in salary. I agree that it's a good deal for (many) employees who
value time off at least as highly as salary. But it's not such a great deal
for the company making the offer.

~~~
grecy
_But it 's not such a great deal for the company making the offer._

Exactly. Which tells you as an employee it's a good deal!

------
stephengillie
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.

~~~
bengali3
What kind of gig was the 10p-6a?

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

~~~
stephengillie
Exactly - we handled the overnight emergency (top severity) alerts for a dozen
other groups, as well as our own service. And we had to do the mailbox moves
after-hours so they weren't disruptive to the end users.

Exchange 2010 I think added online automated mailbox moves, which obviated my
job. So I've experienced software eating my job more than once.

------
andrea_sdl
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

------
jcroll
> 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.

~~~
Tx3
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.

------
heynk
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
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.

------
bengali3
> _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?

~~~
Tx3
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.

------
SpendBig
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.

~~~
Tx3
Is there a possibility to go and do your stuff in other place than home?
Library, cafe, co-working space perhaps?

~~~
SpendBig
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

------
sputknick
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?

~~~
saiya-jin
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.

------
fsk
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.

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jkot
> _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.

~~~
Tx3
Good point! About 30 hours per week.

I'll update the blog post also.

~~~
jkot
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.

~~~
Tx3
It's just me who to blame. I like to leave early to work, so that when I
commute it's quiet and I can do work in the train. But the problem is than I
like evenings. You just have to have one Game of Thrones episode and sleep
rhythm is ruined. ;)

My normal sleep routine would be 23:15 to bed and 06:45 up, so about 7,5
hours. Everything under that I consider sleep deficit.

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brianwawok
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.

