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Some time last year I stopped working Mondays. I’m a contractor and I know my boss well, so I just said that I didn’t want to work Mondays any more. The differ

Some time last year I stopped working Mondays. I’m a contractor and I know my boss well, so I just said that I didn’t want to work Mondays any more. The difference is remarkable. You go from spending three quarters of your days at work to just over half. The weekend is actually relaxing. You can do chores, relax, and really unwind before the work week starts again. We use Mondays to work on our side projects. You can actually focus on that stuff rather than it feeling like an after-thought. I don’t think I get any less done. Sometimes, but not always (or even often), I’ll work longer days. Sometimes I’ll get up really early and start at 07:00, but that’s mostly because I want to. I’m never going back. Five days a week feels barbaric now. And if the younger kids (I’m 45) want to work harder and get ahead, well, let ‘em.

mettamage 4y ago
> but that’s mostly because I want to. Yea, this is key. I either work 4 and sometimes I work 5, the 5th one is free for the company. It's simply because I want to.
pcthrowaway 4y ago
How many hours do you normally complete on Tuesday through Friday? I have a hard time getting 8 billable hours in a day, let alone 10
- jen729w 4y ago
  Yeah it’s usually around 8. I primarily WFH which helps, although the office is only a 10 minute walk away. Getting up just that bit earlier and being at the keyboard by 08:00 is the key.
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
I personally find my weekends a bit exhausting because of my 5 year old, and get to relax at just doing my professional job on Monday when he is back to school. I fear that 3 day weekends every week (since we shouldn’t leave day care workers and teachers out of this) would be the end of me. I’m sure my perspective will change after we are out of the needy kid stage, but even before my son was born, I liked working (I would spend Saturday mornings at work, obviously impossible now) and would carefully select jobs that I would like doing. In addition to, or besides, perhaps we could focus on creating and encouraging fulfilling jobs (to satisfy a wide variety of tastes) vs just cutting back days or hours worked?
- mberning 4y ago
  You said it. Sometimes I can’t wait for Monday to roll around. Sometimes I daydream of just checking into a random hotel or airbnb and hide for half a day.
- buzzy_hacker 4y ago
  > I fear that 3 day weekends every week (since we shouldn’t leave day care workers and teachers out of this) would be the end of me. We could have different groups of people take off different third days. My preference would be to have Wednesdays off.
  - netsharc 4y ago
    There's a short story "Chronopolis" by J.G. Ballard, about a future where society was separated by watches with different colors, and each color had a different time slot for things like commute, lunches, and when they could go to the bank...
- bigDinosaur 4y ago
  It's funny how the most honest groups of people with respect to the purpose of schooling is parents with young kids. Basically what you want is daycare and it just so happens that school fulfills that on Monday. Not judging, I think that's a very common perspective, but amused.
  - xyzzyz 4y ago
    That’s also why the “remote learning” during Covid was such an infuriating joke: the main purpose of schooling (which is daycare) was destroyed, and the learning was marginal at best. This is all while the elementary school children were at no risk from the disease, and while plenty of other “essential workers” were busy working their jobs in person. What a joke.
    - sofixa 4y ago
      > This is all while the elementary school children were at no risk from the disease First, that's untrue: https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-survival/covid-19/ https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-survival/covid-19/ Of course it's not even close to the death rate in adults, especially older ones, thankfully, but it isn't "no risk". Second, the main reason for school closures was that the kids, even if there's very little risk for them, can transmit the disease to family and friends. Nonetheless, some countries, like France, made the choice to keep the schools open to maintain some level of schooling for most kids. It wasn't without issues and massive criticism from teachers ( who were risking their lives to keep other people's kids occupied), parents ( because classes were closed when a kid got Covid to prevent further transmission, so you could suddenly have to deal with your kid), etc.
Proven 4y ago
silves89 4y ago
I've been working four-day weeks for about six years. It's a force-multiplier for contentment. No other life change comes close. I'm grateful every week and like you I'm never going back.
grecy 4y ago
Without a doubt the quality of life improvement is massive. Because of taxes and other expenses, you wind up with more than 4/5th of a paycheck anyway. I'm very, very happy to have a little less money and way more time.
- mettamage 4y ago
  Yea in The Netherlands, I've noticed that you get 2 hours for "free". 100% gross to 80% gross works out to become 100% net to 85% net.
kule 4y ago
I see a lot of people go for Monday or Friday when going down to 4 days a week. There's definitely some advantages to that, however as an alternative suggestion I prefer Wednesdays off. I find even in the best jobs, there's a general level of stress that builds up at work over consecutive days. There's a great feeling being a bit stressed on Tuesday and thinking "ah it's ok I've got tomorrow off". It's like that "Friday Feeling" twice a week.
- DocTomoe 4y ago
  A short exploration of that concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaTm6VzTBw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaTm6VzTBw
- kwhitefoot 4y ago
  Shops in the UK used to have a half day on Wednesdays.
  - basisword 4y ago
    I know some GP practices that still do this (quite astounding given the current issues in the NHS).
    - stna 4y ago
      I actually think it's quite astounding that they haven't been forced to give this up, and I hope they never have to. Specifically, when I go to my GP, the staff are always busy, don't appear to get much of a break at all. I doubt a half day on a Wednesday makes up for extra hours put into their job just to get through the week.
      - basisword 4y ago
        I mean to me it makes sense that they would be less busy if they worked a full week like everyone else. When we have a shortage of GP's and it's impacting people across the country (and having a knock on effect on hospital A&E usage) disallowing 4.5 day weeks would probably help. There are obviously much bigger issues at play (e.g. recruiting GP's) but that doesn't mean we should ignore things that could impact immediately in a smaller way.
AndrewVos 4y ago
I've been doing the same for quite some time now. Friday is my day off. It really is amazing for work/life balance. Another amazing thing is that you can spend time with your family doing fun activities but there are no queues. Everyone else is at work! You will have to up your day-rate though.
- balfirevic 4y ago
  If you can up your rate, why wouldn’t you do it in any case?
- jen729w 4y ago
  Yes! We call it ‘opposite day’ and laugh at all the normies who have to go to the [busy place] on a Saturday like everyone else. ;-)
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

mettamage 4y ago

> but that’s mostly because I want to. Yea, this is key. I either work 4 and sometimes I work 5, the 5th one is free for the company. It's simply because I want to.

pcthrowaway 4y ago

How many hours do you normally complete on Tuesday through Friday? I have a hard time getting 8 billable hours in a day, let alone 10

jen729w 4y ago
Yeah it’s usually around 8. I primarily WFH which helps, although the office is only a 10 minute walk away. Getting up just that bit earlier and being at the keyboard by 08:00 is the key.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

I personally find my weekends a bit exhausting because of my 5 year old, and get to relax at just doing my professional job on Monday when he is back to school. I fear that 3 day weekends every week (since we shouldn’t leave day care workers and teachers out of this) would be the end of me. I’m sure my perspective will change after we are out of the needy kid stage, but even before my son was born, I liked working (I would spend Saturday mornings at work, obviously impossible now) and would carefully select jobs that I would like doing. In addition to, or besides, perhaps we could focus on creating and encouraging fulfilling jobs (to satisfy a wide variety of tastes) vs just cutting back days or hours worked?

mberning 4y ago
You said it. Sometimes I can’t wait for Monday to roll around. Sometimes I daydream of just checking into a random hotel or airbnb and hide for half a day.
buzzy_hacker 4y ago
> I fear that 3 day weekends every week (since we shouldn’t leave day care workers and teachers out of this) would be the end of me. We could have different groups of people take off different third days. My preference would be to have Wednesdays off.
- netsharc 4y ago
  There's a short story "Chronopolis" by J.G. Ballard, about a future where society was separated by watches with different colors, and each color had a different time slot for things like commute, lunches, and when they could go to the bank...
bigDinosaur 4y ago
It's funny how the most honest groups of people with respect to the purpose of schooling is parents with young kids. Basically what you want is daycare and it just so happens that school fulfills that on Monday. Not judging, I think that's a very common perspective, but amused.
- xyzzyz 4y ago
  That’s also why the “remote learning” during Covid was such an infuriating joke: the main purpose of schooling (which is daycare) was destroyed, and the learning was marginal at best. This is all while the elementary school children were at no risk from the disease, and while plenty of other “essential workers” were busy working their jobs in person. What a joke.
  - sofixa 4y ago
    > This is all while the elementary school children were at no risk from the disease First, that's untrue: https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-survival/covid-19/ https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-survival/covid-19/ Of course it's not even close to the death rate in adults, especially older ones, thankfully, but it isn't "no risk". Second, the main reason for school closures was that the kids, even if there's very little risk for them, can transmit the disease to family and friends. Nonetheless, some countries, like France, made the choice to keep the schools open to maintain some level of schooling for most kids. It wasn't without issues and massive criticism from teachers ( who were risking their lives to keep other people's kids occupied), parents ( because classes were closed when a kid got Covid to prevent further transmission, so you could suddenly have to deal with your kid), etc.

Proven 4y ago

silves89 4y ago

I've been working four-day weeks for about six years. It's a force-multiplier for contentment. No other life change comes close. I'm grateful every week and like you I'm never going back.

grecy 4y ago

Without a doubt the quality of life improvement is massive. Because of taxes and other expenses, you wind up with more than 4/5th of a paycheck anyway. I'm very, very happy to have a little less money and way more time.

mettamage 4y ago
Yea in The Netherlands, I've noticed that you get 2 hours for "free". 100% gross to 80% gross works out to become 100% net to 85% net.

kule 4y ago

I see a lot of people go for Monday or Friday when going down to 4 days a week. There's definitely some advantages to that, however as an alternative suggestion I prefer Wednesdays off. I find even in the best jobs, there's a general level of stress that builds up at work over consecutive days. There's a great feeling being a bit stressed on Tuesday and thinking "ah it's ok I've got tomorrow off". It's like that "Friday Feeling" twice a week.

DocTomoe 4y ago
A short exploration of that concept: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaTm6VzTBw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ALaTm6VzTBw
kwhitefoot 4y ago
Shops in the UK used to have a half day on Wednesdays.
- basisword 4y ago
  I know some GP practices that still do this (quite astounding given the current issues in the NHS).
  - stna 4y ago
    I actually think it's quite astounding that they haven't been forced to give this up, and I hope they never have to. Specifically, when I go to my GP, the staff are always busy, don't appear to get much of a break at all. I doubt a half day on a Wednesday makes up for extra hours put into their job just to get through the week.
    - basisword 4y ago
      I mean to me it makes sense that they would be less busy if they worked a full week like everyone else. When we have a shortage of GP's and it's impacting people across the country (and having a knock on effect on hospital A&E usage) disallowing 4.5 day weeks would probably help. There are obviously much bigger issues at play (e.g. recruiting GP's) but that doesn't mean we should ignore things that could impact immediately in a smaller way.

AndrewVos 4y ago

I've been doing the same for quite some time now. Friday is my day off. It really is amazing for work/life balance. Another amazing thing is that you can spend time with your family doing fun activities but there are no queues. Everyone else is at work! You will have to up your day-rate though.

balfirevic 4y ago
If you can up your rate, why wouldn’t you do it in any case?
jen729w 4y ago
Yes! We call it ‘opposite day’ and laugh at all the normies who have to go to the [busy place] on a Saturday like everyone else. ;-)

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]