My honest review of the 4 day workweek
Photo by Bich Tran
As you may or may not know, in January I decided that I was going to experiment with a 4-day work week to see if it would work better for me and my business than the standard 5-day work week.
At that time, I also promised I’d give you an update and tell you how it’s going.
And because we’re now more than half way through the year, it’s time for me to make good on that promise.
Now, I’d be lying if I said it was all roses and that it’s been smooth sailing all year.
But, I’m definitely going to keep the experiment running for the remainder of the year, and I won’t make a call about whether to make it permanent until year’s end; I want to give this a good ‘ole college-try.
So, here’s what I have to report so far:
The Good:
Having 1 weekday each week where I don’t need to wake up to an alarm has been amazing. I’m a total night owl, and I can’t even tell you how good it feels to know that come Friday, there’s no alarm that’s going to be waking me up before I’m good and ready.
It’s pretty amazing to have a day at home, to do what I want with, when NO ONE ELSE is there.
Honestly, this isn’t even something I really anticipated before the experiment. I thought it would feel like a 3-day weekend. But it’s actually a totally different thing.
On the weekend, well, I still have responsibilities to my family. I cook breakfast, lunch and dinner. My kids need me for stuff. Weekend days, as every parent knows, are not necessarily “free time”.
But now, I have Fridays. And trust me, I still get a lot of stuff done on Fridays. But it’s really lovely to have no one else around needing anything from me.
The Less-Good:
I’ve made some exceptions; it’s not been perfect. Sometimes, I have a client who wants to hire me to facilitate a workshop, and the only day that works for them is a Friday. And on those occasions, I’ve made an exception. Only a handful of them so far, but still.
It’s been a very humbling experience trying to recalibrate my workload.
Prior to this experiment, I was already pretty darn efficient after honing my skills for many years. I didn’t have a lot of “fluff” in my schedule.
And, as such, it’s been quite difficult, far moreso than I expected, to recalibrate Task Realism to a 4-day week instead of a 5-day week; it’s been a learning process.
There are more weeks than I’d like to admit that I was a little overzealous about what I could get done.
But, I’m improving my realistic planning skills, week by week. And the last several weeks, I’ve been back at Task Realism.
And it’s definitely renewed my empathy for my clients, most of whom struggle with coming to grips with the fact that they are just not going to be able to do everything they want to do in the time that they want to do it in.
I’ve also found that taking Fridays off has negatively affected Mondays.
Mondays used to be about 80% deep work, creative work, writing, etc., and 20% email/admin.
Now, because on Monday I’m also handling all the email that’s come in since Thursday around 5pm, Monday is about 60% deep work and 40% admin/email.
I’m finding that it’s necessary to block an extra day for deep work every other week to ensure I have enough time for creative and strategic endeavors.
So, how am I spending my Fridays these days:
I’ve moved doctor’s appointments (for myself and my kids)to Fridays, where possible, so that I have more work time in the rest of the week.
I still do take some calls on Fridays, but they’re work-adjacent (dare I say “fun”) calls. And I’m only doing it if it doesn’t feel like work.
What are these calls? Well, there are several colleagues I like to stay in touch with on the regular, and these chats are generally scheduled for Fridays. It’s “fun work” so it doesn’t feel like work, and these are always done by noon.
I “do lunch”. Sometimes with colleagues, sometimes with friends, sometimes with my kids if they’re off school, and sometimes with my husband if he happens to be home.
I spend almost every Friday afternoon in the pottery studio, leisurely, languidly. It’s been an absolute joy.
So, will I make this experiment into a permanent change?
I haven’t 100% decided yet.
But the sign point to yes.
And I promise to write another update at the end of the year and let you know what I decide.