Ask HN: I'm considering trying a 4-day work week. How has it worked out for you? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I'm considering trying a 4-day work week. How has it worked out for you?

37 pointsstevesearer46 comments

I'm considering experimenting with a 4-day work week for a few months. Does anyone have feedback on how this has worked or not worked for them?

A little background with some of the reasons why:

-Not convinced I currently have 40 hours of work to do. Either I'm wasting time or not finding enough work to do.

-My wife and I have a 3-month old daughter and I want to spend more time with them

-Errands that need to be done during business hours (dr. appts, dmv, social security office, etc..)

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(UK here but...)

33 hours a week over 4 days (the max IBM will allow you to do in 4 days). Two shorter days from home with an early start and early finish so I can collect my daughter from school. Longer days on the days my wife isn't working (she also works part-time). Prior to starting school daughter was at nursery and my hours were 9-5 for 3 days (so I could do nursery drop-off and collection) and one longer day.

Occasionally I work more than 33 hours a week but that's by my own choice. It's not expected of me.

Been part-time for more than 4 years now. I'm happy with my job, I've actively avoided career progression (as that would jeopardise the part-time arrangement) and my boss(es) are more than happy with this and with my output. They (and IBM in general) have been very supportive of it all.

Alternating days between home/office takes a bit of getting used to (and organisation) but I'm into the routine now.

Wouldn't trade that one day a week off for anything (even getting back the pay cut I took to get it), especially as it is "daddy day" during the school holidays (and before she started school). Now it's guilt-free time to do chores or whatever else I want.

We could both work longer hours, get a nanny, push for promotions and bigger jobs and pay off the mortgage in 5 years rather than 15 but I wouldn't get to spend any good quality time with my daughter so there's no point doing that. They're only young once.

I haven't done a four-day work week, but I've been doing three-day for about a year. I love it. It's not so much that I work less, though I guess I do. Mostly it's the flexibility I love. Usually I work Monday through Wednesday. If I need to do something one of those days, it's trivial to say I'll just swap out that day for Thursday or Friday instead. I can do errands or spend time with my family during the day whenever I want, and not feel even a tiny bit of guilt or worry that I'm falling behind. I can take a six day weekend without consuming any vacation time, just by shifting my days around in the weeks before and after. Yes, I took a pay cut to have this, but I can scarcely imagine going back to full time now.

I've tried a few things:

For the first year after my first daughter was born I "worked from home" on Wednesdays so I could stay home with her. Working from home consisted of doing a lot of extra work Tuesday and Thursday and being available by chat/email on Wednesdays. It worked okay, but I felt constantly stressed not knowing what would possibly come up in the office and if I would be able to handle it plus watch my daughter.

After my second daughter was born I spent a year working 12 - 8 so I could watch the children in the morning and they could have their mother in the evening. I didn't see my wife much, but this was a good year with the children. I enjoyed seeing them every morning and having that time. Plus I was able to run some of the regular errands you speak of...

Now I'm on to my third daughter and I'm not sure what I'll do when my wife's maternity leave is over. I am considering going in to the office very early while my wife is on leave so I can be home earlier in the evening.

I often feel that sometimes I'm wasting my time with the 40-hour work week. I could probably accomplish the same in less hours each week but I like my job and we're a small company so we need someone each day.

In a perfect world, I'd work an extra two hours each day early in the morning and take Friday's off. But that wouldn't work with getting the kids to school now (first daughter is now 5yo) and again my employer needs me everyday.

I wish there was a solution.

Amazingly well. When my son (first child) was 4 months old, my wife & I were struggling to keep on top of everything and stay happy. I'd tried working 9 days of every fortnight and doing longer days to make up for the 10th day's hours, but that didn't help. (Bedtimes have always been hard with my son, even still now he's 3).

I asked my then employer if I could drop to 4 days a week, pro-rata, and was surprised when the answer was yes! I had a few months last year on 5 days again, and it was still too much.

We're lucky enough to be able to afford the reduction in salary & benefits, and I won't go back to 5 days if I can avoid it.

For me the benefits are: * more time with family. * better time with family, because I have more energy. * more time for chores, paperwork etc * more time,energy & motivation for my own interests * more time to cook good food & make/mend things reduces costs mitigating the salary reduction.

More interesting is that - counterintuitively - I still get about the same amount of work done as on 5 days, and I think it's better quality too.

I have nothing but good things to say about 4-day weeks and would love to see more of it in tech industry (and others too).

One of the things that made me first consider doing this is the number of things that need to take place during business hours like DMV, post office, dr appts, calling the insurance company...

Even though I have the flexibility to just not work for an hour while I call about why my daughter hasn't been added to our insurance policy, I'm wondering what people without that flexibility do? If I ever have the opportunity to have employees I hope these experiences will help me be a better and more understanding employer.

"surprised when the answer was yes"

When I reduced my hours, I was amused to notice that everyone from the VP who approved it down to the person in HR who handled the paperwork said they wished they could do the same. I told them all that they could. Most of us in this industry can get by on less, and be happier for it. If you're willing to push for it, any even marginally sane employer will do the calculations for letting you do it vs. hiring a replacement, and make the right decision. Sometimes the paperwork gets a bit messy, but if you show a willingness to work with people on that it can get done - and every person like me who has already gone down this road probably makes it a bit easier for others. In another decade this will be practically normal, just like working from home used to be weird but is now commonplace.

My wife and I also have a 3 month old daughter. I work half time and live in luxury. I moved to Mexico a few years ago and work remotely. Earn SF hourly rate, spend $280/month on rent!

I think I get more done now working half time than I did working full time. And I'm a lot more pleasant to be around

Do you do it legally?

Yes. It's really straight forward - go for an interview in the US with bank statements for the last 6 months at a Mexican consulate, then go to Mexico and 3 weeks later (after a few local visits) you have your temporary residency card.

There's not that many countries with immigration problems like the US. The majority of governments don't care much.

I am doing 3-day work week (plus a day of studying) per week, so roughly equal, and it has worked great. You're more focused at work, and you get a lot of time to think about problems before having to sit down and do it.

Right now I'm working Wednesday through Friday, but if I had a choice of four days I would have Wednesdays off. The extra day in the middle to take some time off and thing about other things and get back with a new perspective worked very well for me when I had the opportunity, better than the concentrated block.

Right now I'm doing three days in a row because my boss thinks it's easier to communicate that way, and I guess he is right too, it's a trade-off.

Interesting approach on taking Wednesday off. I'm thinking of working M-TH with Friday off to allow for 3-day weekends for visiting family out of town.

I actually do T,W,Th or last 3 days of the week.

It helps with my clients to do their other work in the start of the week.

I'm a manager indirectly over about 15 people. We unofficially have a 4-day work week. I believe one other person and myself are the only ones who work 5 days a week. The rest of the team "works from home" one day a week. I don't believe anything really gets done on those days, though they tend to be responsive to email. Personally, I'd rather we just take Mondays or Fridays off and call it done. My company won't allow that, though..

The big problem from a company perspective is usually customers. Customers want 24/7 availability, not 8/4 availability, so if you have a product that requires a lot of hand-holding for your customers, a 4 day work week isn't really gonna cut it (unless you have enough people to cover the gap, and in that case, you're probably wasting someone's salary).

If you're a freelancer or run your own startup, you should absolutely do a 4 day work week. Whatever makes you happy, but as long as you get shit done!

I'm in the situation of being both a FTE at a medium sized company, and generate a fair amount (on track for $60k this year) as a freelance dev. I've been getting busier and busier on the side, to the point where I'm wondering if I have to choose one or the other.

While I was familiar with the 4-day work week concept, I hadn't really considered that an option for myself until I came across this discussion. My work/life balance has obviously suffered by running a business while working as an employee, but the opportunity has been too great to say no to.

I know that the rate of work I've been doing the past year isn't sustainable. I'm intrigued by the idea of working ~32 hours to try and balance that.

One of my best friends does this. He's a FTE at a medium-sized company, and his freelance work is approaching his normal FTE salary (which is already considerable, imo). He's been so overworked with the freelance stuff that he's been considering cutting it down. What he wound up doing was hiring a bookkeeper (online service) to manage invoices, taxes, etc, and a virtual assistant (zirtual.com I think) to respond to emails and such. He's been doing both for about a month, and he's cut back his hours immensely while still making the same amount of money. If you're concerned about having to choose, you might want to look into hiring virtual assistants to help you out.

Good luck! Personally, I'm jealous. I can't stand dealing with clients and I'm not disciplined enough to make anywhere close to 60K/year on freelance work. Keep it up (as long as you're happy)!

Are you hiring? ;)

Unfortunately, no. Good try, though :)

My situation is a bit different - I still work 40 hours most weeks but I only do 4 10 hour days most of the time. Personally, I love it. I don't really mind staying an extra two hours (and my evenings alone in the office are very productive - imagine 2-3 hours every day with no email from coworkers), and having three day weekends is amazing. Not only for errands, but I think it really makes a difference in my mood coming back to work to have what my culture treats as a holiday weekend most weekends.

Completely different industry (diesel mechanic at a power plant) but this is the kind of schedule my father has worked for years. It works especially nicely, since his company staggers the coverage so that one works Mon-Thurs, then Tues-Friday, so that you get a four-day weekend every other week. Of course, this is an industrial outfit, so they are more used to unconventional schedules due to the demands of rotating shifts for the operators.

You can actually get something done, with four days off. Two days is just barely enough to take care of the essentials and recover before its time to go back to work.

I wanted to spend more time in volunteer work with my wife, so I took a job that allows me to work four 8-hour days. It came with a pay cut, but I was willing to take that. My schedule is every other Monday and Friday. That means I have alternating 2-day and 4-day weekends.

It's been awesome! Been doing it for about 9 months now. I love the time I spend outside of work on my personal pursuits, and the extra time to spend with my wife, too. It's great for taking roadtrips or taking care of other things when they come up.

I've recently turned down a job that would have paid me SIGNIFICANTLY more money (about 50% more) if I went back to 5 days. For now, I'm enjoying my schedule too much.

It sounds like you have good reasons, especially #2. There's nothing like spending time with the people you love. Do it!

I have a flex work arrangement right now where I do ~45 minutes extra per day to bank the time and take every second Friday off.

By the time you throw in Stat holidays, leave days and the odd sick day, a 5 day work week is abnormal, not normal.

The headspace I get from a 3 day weekend seems to be an order of magnitude more than a 2 day weekend. 4 day weekend is another order of magnitude.

I worked at 4 10-hour day job a few years back. It was probably the best experience I've ever had working.

The week is exhausting, but I usually work more than the 8 hours anyways, so it was actually not much different from my usual work-week.

My big problem is that it takes me a day to "recover" from the work week, another day to do errands/life-realted tasks, then straight back into the work week. The extra day provided to me gave me the opportunity to actually have a life- hobbies, personal projects, etc.

Additionally, having that day outside the weekend means there isn't that many people around to bug you (although this can be a double edge sword).

I've successfully worked a 4-day work week for over a year. I assume you mean 4, 10-hour days, which is what I did. I actually staggered my work week so I'd work Mon-Thur, then Tues-Fri, giving me a 2-day weekend, then a 4-day weekend.

Other members of my team had the same schedule, and we'd stagger our schedules as well.

It worked very well for me. I loved the extra time. I don't have kids, so the 4-10s was pretty easy for me. And having 4-day weekends every other week allowed me to do take mini-vacations and do some travel.

The plan is to work 4 8-5 days. I like the idea of staggering Mondays and Fridays, though Monday is one of the more important days for work-wise so that isn't quite doable in my case.

It works. If you try to cram 40+ hours in those 4 days, some things that you might have had time to do such as exercising or things like that may be impacted. The benefits you list are huge though. I'd say its worth trying. For some people, it's too long of a day, but for others they're fine with the trade off. Personally, I prefer 8 hour days to 10 hour days, but I don't have a kid yet and I have a pretty flexible schedule at work for appointments and stuff right now.

I would assume anyone looking at a 4 day work week probably isn't constrained by the arbitrary (American) 40-hour work week, or wouldn't care to be.

Exactly. The hard thing is communicating the change to some people because the appearance is that I'm somehow taking it easy and not working hard.

I'm actually planning on trying to work only ~32 hours. Part of the experiment will be to find out how much time I spend not doing work during the week.

That will help me either find room in my schedule for work-related things I didn't think I had time for or just simply give me more time to enjoy with my family.

I think the more relevant question might be, how do people handle their three day weekends?

I've tried out all levels of weekly work hours. Too little work can be very difficult to deal with. After years of trying out 1,2,3,4,5,6 and 7 day weeks, I've settled back to five.

Remember, not all of your friends will be available to hang out on your extra day. Have you got a specific use for the time?

By all means, give it a whirl. My 2c would just be to find something to fill that extra time with.

From the OP:

> My wife and I have a 3-month old daughter and I want to spend more time with them

I think that pretty much sums it up.

I assume that you are self-employed. If you are not, then I guess it all depends on your employer.

I've been thinking of working 4 days a week during summer, but since I mostly work full-time for one client at a time, it would definitely disrupt their plans as well. So I'm still kinda thinking about it, but not doing anything about it :)

I think it works best if you have a business that doesn't depend on you being there all the time.

Yeah, self-employed, but not really in an hourly pay scenario where more hours worked directly correlates to more income. If that were the case, it would likely be more difficult to take a reduction in pay to make it work.

Since you're self-employed, it's very possible to incorporate a 4-day workweek.

You'll want to:

* Be more greedy with your time. In other words, start delegating more and place more trust in the people you delegate the work to. If you're currently a workaholic, it will definitely feel foreign to so fervently pursue having more "unproductive" time. Focus on the "big wins." People, especially talented ones, have a tendency to work UP to the level of expectation and trust.

* Spend more effort planning out the week on Day 1. Track what is being done, but focus on where you want to be above which specific tasks are getting done. Ensure progress is being made, even if tasks feel like they're piling up (this happens; that's life). Marry yourself to that feeling of incremental improvement, not how much "work" you're putting in.

* Disconnect on your days off—make your decision pay off. You're self-employed, so it will probably be difficult. The main benefit of working less is that your focus deficit will slowly turn into a surplus. It becomes easier to be ON when you are working when you are actually OFF during your downtime. Easier said than done.

A lot about working less is counter-intuitive. You see this culture of 80 hour weeks and you think that's what it takes to keep up, but you don't hear about how draining it is and how often people burn out. You are affording yourself personal sustainability today, which to me is much more valuable than a large payout "someday."

That is a lot of great advice. Disconnecting is going to be an important part of the time off.

One of the things I'm still weighing is the need to balance "me time" with "family time". Having a day off is great for going on a solo hike or something, but with a 3-month old, it is kind of a dick move to make my wife stay at home with our daughter while I'm off gallivanting around regenerating my batteries.

I rent an office space so separating work and home is easier than it would be if I had a home office. But I'm really hoping to treat it like a day off and just not check in.

Maybe after I experiment for a few months I'll write up a blog post about it and report back.

Alternate week-to-week. One week, you can go for your hike. The next, you spend the day at home and let your do what it is she wants. Maybe even plan out every third week for you to hire a babysitter and explore the world together.

I've been doing a 4-day work week (working 80%) and it's great. If you're in a circumstance that allows you to do this (and I recognize that most people aren't), I strongly recommend it. It gives me much 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. The 4-day work week also gives me much more time (nonlinearly more) to spend on side projects.

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; 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 better not telling people about it (thus the throwaway). Finally, I feel sort of a personal pressure to make the most of the extra day - I no longer have an excuse for not accomplishing more. E.g. why am I on HN when I could be writing a book :-)

Worked fairly well for me (24hrs over 4 days.) I'd recommend using the day to extend the weekend - I've found that vastly more relaxing than using it to split the week into two chunks, especially on those weeks where I've got to the end of it a bit knackered, and found it easier to schedule work when my working time forms relatively contiguous blocks.

Congratulations on the birth of your daughter. You won't regret the good fortune of any time you can spend with her before she grows and goes.

My spouse worked four day weeks in all sorts of configurations for many years. My observation is that the rhythm of the workplace makes a difference over which days are better to take off. Sometimes Mondays matter a lot, sometimes Fridays, sometimes Wednesdays, and in some environments weekends. If you're off on a critical day of the week then you're always running a bit out of sync.

There were times when the split weekend...particularly Thursday off seemed really good. The three day weekends were good if we were going to travel but Mondays and Fridays aren't always the best days for running errands.

Three days off Sunday through Tuesday seemed to work pretty well. Two days for errands provides a lot of options. Sunday, at least in the US, syncs up better with everyone else's workweek.

Good luck.

Another approach you might consider is:

  - 4 to 6 hours of dedicated/uninterrupted work per day
  - 6 to 7 days per week
  - Wake early, say 05:30, and start work right off the bat

I looked at my own GitHub work history to see when I was most productive and also read a book about how many of the most profound creatives worked in their own lives. Both suggested such a structure and it allows/addresses many of your concerns (i.e. I also have a child, need to do chores, don't want to count hours but productivity, etc). The thought being many work best early in the day, you only have so many hours in a day you can focus on hard problems without wasting time, and consistency is a virtue.

Over here in the Netherlands, part time working is pretty normal. I've been working four days a week for a couple of years now and I can really recommend it. Perhaps you will be a little bit less productive, but definitely not 20%.

If you can handle it financially, just do it.

I'm doing 3 days of the week work, and the rest of the week working out of office if I needed to.

It's working pretty well for me, but it needs a lot of self discipline and self indulgence to keep things in place hah!

Specially if you are doing some sort of consulting it could work well.

I've been doing 32 hours over 4 days for the past month and I've found that I'm working more efficiently and with more attention to the work. I think it's the product of my subconscious treating the fourth day as a deadline every week. In effect, I think I'm getting as much done as if I was working 5 days a week, while at the same time getting paid for 4. If there is any merit to this, I can't see why every employer shouldn't opt for a 4 working day week.

I have worked 4 10-hour days for about a year. Three-day weekends are nice, but 10 hours is a loonnngg day. You get into a stride and don't notice all the time pass, but then it gets to be dinner time and it's dark out but you still have to work a bit more, so it gets old.

I do not have any experience with the matter but I agree and support your decision it makes no sense for one to be at work while the different offices that people need to get done are open at the same time. It is almost impossible to get things done. GOOD LUCK!

Possibly relevant, in case you live in CA, USA.

http://paidfamilyleave.org/

http://paidfamilyleave.org/about-us

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