
You Can Negotiate a 3-Day Weekend: a book for devs who want a shorter workweek - itamarst
https://codewithoutrules.com/3dayweekend/
======
beatgammit
Part of me wants Wednesdays off. I get pretty unproductive by Thursday because
I want a break, and if I only worked two days at a time, I feel I'd get more
done. In fact, I've been working as a contractor recently, and I've been more
productive with a 6 hour workday than I was with an 8 hour work day, and I
often take a break midweek.

But yes, everything is negotiable, provided you do it on front. I tried to
negotiate working from home after working at a company for years and got
denied, but we have a few remote workers who negotiated it up-front. Likewise,
my coworker negotiated more vacation days (he paid for it with lower salary),
but that wouldn't have happened if he didn't make the deal up front.

IMO, the only advice needed for this is to decide what you want before taking
a job and make it a condition of employment before you start; it's better to
know up front whether the company will grant it, and it's better for them to
know you want it as well. In fact, if you want a change in your benefits/work
hours, you're more likely to get it (IMO) by looking for a new job than by
negotiating with your current employer because for some reason new hires are
valued more highly than retention.

~~~
itamarst
1) Wednesdays off are a popular choice yeah: see
[https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-
programmer...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer/)
who talks about it.

2) For _salaries_ it seems like new job is better way to get big bump.

For shorter hours, however, negotiating current job is much easier based on my
own experience and research.

3) Deciding what you want is a big part of it, but you can make it a lot
easier in many ways, as I discuss in the book. For example:

* Only ask for shorter workweek after you get the job offer.

* Present your skills in the right way (a lot of resumes are just a list of technologies instead of expressing real value of skills).

* Get multiple job offers.

* Make sure you don't give a vibe of not being committed.

etc.

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sexyflanders
Advertisement

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mprev
Is this really a book’s worth of content?

~~~
itamarst
Author here—

It's about 27,000 words, so about a 100 pages at industry "standard" of
250-300 words a page. So, taken in a literal sense, yes.

Does it need a book's worth of content? It depends.

If you have a lot of experience negotiating quite possibly not, you can figure
it out on your own probably (you can learn some techniques from interview I
did [https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-
programmer...](https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer/)
and [https://stackingthebricks.com/guest-post-how-30x500-alum-
chr...](https://stackingthebricks.com/guest-post-how-30x500-alum-chris-
hartjes-bootstraps-on-the-side/)).

Some people need more information though, and that's what I've tried to
provide.

~~~
mprev
Thanks for the thorough response. How was your experience writing the book?
I’m curious to learn about people’s process for taking an expertise and
converting it into a book.

~~~
itamarst
1\. I interviewed a number of people (and their stories are in the book), both
as inspiration for readers and to spot more patterns than my personal
experience.

2\. A lot of time spent reading books, and even more importantly online
comments from people who have done it (for more techniques) and people who
wanted to do it (for questions and worries people have).

That plus personal experience gave me outline of gap between where people are
and what they need to be able to do, and skills and information needed to fill
the gap.

(There's idea of backward design in education: here are outcomes, which
require these skills, which require these even earlier skills, which require
these attitudes...)

