If You Need to Work 40+ Hours as a Creator, You Might Be Doing It All Wrong
Here’s how I’m moving to a 4-day workweek in 2024.
I started my first business when I was 20 years old because I couldn’t stand the idea of spending decades working 40 hours per week to eventually retire.
I also don’t like being told what to do or how to do it, so being my own boss sounded much better than sitting in a cubicle office for most of the year.
Even though entrepreneurship isn’t right for everyone, it was for me because I value freedom more than anything else in my career.
To be fair, my plan to do my own thing only worked because I was willing to work 80-hour weeks until I figured out how to actually make money.
When I started my first business, I was working a full-time corporate job and taking my final classes at university. I spent early mornings, late nights, and all weekends working on my side projects for over a year.
I’m lucky to say I love what I do for a living, but I don’t accept the idea of living to work.
For context, here’s how I make a living:
- I write on the internet and encourage my readers to sign up for my email list.
- I run a newsletter to help you write online, build an audience, and grow your income.
- I sell digital courses through automated sales funnels and live launches.
- After finishing one of my courses, my students can join my private membership.
That’s the bulk of what I do: Writing articles and emails, helping new writers/creators, keeping my courses up to date, and running occasional marketing events.
I’ve been working less than 30 hours per week for the last two years, so for me, transitioning to a 4-day workweek doesn’t mean reducing how much I work. It’s more about freeing up an entire day that I can spend on non-work activities.
I had already been thinking of moving to a 4-day workweek in 2023, but a cancer diagnosis in my family turned my life upside down, and work-life balance was the last thing I was worried about.
Yet I was lucky to come across Buffer’s story in November 2023, which inspired me to start thinking of the 4-day workweek again.
When my business partner and fiancé coincidently told me he’d been thinking of no-work Fridays, we knew it was time to give it a shot.
Buffer reported moving to a 4-day work schedule in 2020 and proudly announced that 78% of the staff is happier while taking 62% fewer days off ill.
And they’re not alone.
Microsoft Japan reported a 40% increase in productivity thanks to the 4-day workweek, and a UK experiment with 61 companies led to similar results. Over 90% of the companies reported they’ll keep using the new schedule thanks to the positive results.
The 4-day workweek isn’t just about working less. It’s about working smarter.
While toxic hustle culture is still promoting the idea of waking up at 4 am to work your ass off, the 4-day workweek is about more balance, less stress, and better health.
What’s the point of leaving a job you hate to be your own boss if you eventually end up feeling even more stressed to make ends meet?
It always breaks my heart to see people advising new creators to juggle multiple side hustles alongside a day job. They’ll tell you to keep your job for stability and create content in your free time to make more money and have a creative outlet. And that’s fine if you don’t have much else to do, but I don’t support the idea of working for 60+ hours per week — even if you love what you do.
We need rest, pauses, and adventures to thrive. And if we’re honest, there isn’t much time left for those things if you work 40–60 hours, get enough sleep, and have to cook, keep your home clean, raise kids, work out, and nourish relationships.
Let’s redefine work-life balance
No matter if you’re a solopreneur making $50k per year or a business owner with a hundred employees, being your own boss should enable you to have more time to live life to the fullest.
Being an entrepreneur usually means lots of responsibility and uncertainty. We should at least be able to use the fact that we’re more flexible to our advantage.
What’s most appealing to me about the 4-day workweek is the idea of an extended weekend.
I talked to people taking Wednesdays off to split their regular workweek into two small chunks, but I prefer having three consecutive days off.
Here’s how I’m thinking of my 3-day weekend:
- 1 day to run errands and do essentials like doctor’s appointments (Fridays)
- 1 day for adventures, activities & quality time (Saturdays)
- 1 day for recovery & self-care (Sundays)
Does the 4-day workweek make sense for you?
Since the main reason to switch to a 4-day workweek is to have better balance, there’s no point in enforcing it if it’ll eventually lead to more stress.
I worked out a few questions that helped me determine if a shorter workweek would make sense in the long run:
- Is my current workload reasonable for a 4-day workweek?
- Will my clients face a negative experience because of the change? (Or: How can I manage client expectations and maintain quality service?)
- What are my long-term goals? Can I achieve them with reduced working hours?
- Can my business maintain growth and profitability with reduced working hours?
- Can I optimize my workload and processes so I don’t have to sacrifice (future) profits while only working four days a week?
- Are there aspects of my business that can be automated to save time?
- Could (more) delegation and outsourcing help me in this process?
- What’s my expectation of the 4-day workweek, and when would I consider the change a success?
Based on these questions, I knew the 4-day schedule does indeed make lots of sense for me, and was excited to start the change process.
How to actually move to a 4-day workweek
I’m not a fan of big, sudden changes, so I decided to slowly ease into the 4-day workweek.
As you can tell by the publishing date of this article, moving to a 4-day schedule is a New Year’s Resolution, so I’m viewing January as a testing period to make a few subtle changes that’ll hopefully help me stick to a shorter workweek in the long run:
I only take calls on Tuesdays and Thursdays
This helps me in two ways:
- I have lots of time for uninterrupted deep work sessions on Mondays and Wednesdays.
- Since I won’t take calls on Fridays, it’s easier to take the day off, go on a day trip, or be away for the entire weekend without my laptop.
This is a small but powerful change that I’ll stick to even if my 4-day workweek project fails.
If you’re working with clients who expect prompt responses or feedback, you’ll want to communicate this change to maintain healthy boundaries and realistic expectations.
Committing to another activity
Even though not taking calls on Fridays is a great start, I knew I might still end up working on a Friday if I didn’t have anything else planned. This is especially true for cold winter days when I don’t feel like going on a long outdoor adventure.
I knew I’d be safer if I committed to actually doing a non-work activity, so I scheduled a padel tennis training for Fridays at 11 am.
Now I have to leave the house at 10 am to be at the court on time each Friday.
I figured it’d be crucial to know how I want to use my extra free day, and the training session is a great anchor to plan the rest of my free day.
Marie Kondo’ing your to-do list
The biggest change was to clean up my to-do list by asking myself the following question for each item, task, and uncompleted project in my business:
Does it bring me closer to the life I want?
The life I want is one full of adventures and time with my loved ones. Sure, I need money to afford my desired lifestyle, but if a task glues me to my computer without adding to my happiness, it means I made a wrong choice and have to rethink how I spend my time and energy.
The monthly review
For the first three months, I’ll conduct a monthly review to see if the change is successful.
I’ll ask myself:
- How did I spend my extra time?
- Was I able to achieve my goals despite working less?
- Did I feel good about taking an extra day off, or did it cause any form of stress?
- Did I feel more overwhelmed from Monday to Thursday?
- Did I miss any deadlines because of my schedule?
- Did I see any significant changes in revenue?
- Did I get any relevant client feedback on my new schedule?
- What new challenges did I face, and how could I overcome them?
- Do I need to make any adjustments to better enjoy the 4-day workweek in the future?
Final thoughts
For my partner and me, the 4-day workweek is all about putting life over work.
I don’t want to live to work. I don’t want to squeeze in an extra 10 hours of work per week to have more followers, subscribers, or even money.
When I look back at my life in a decade, I want to be remembered of endless experiences and adventures. I want to be outside, soak up the sunshine, get lost in new places, and enjoy the fact that I’m lucky to live in a time and place where I actually have all those opportunities.
The 4-day workweek is about placing my health, family, and friends first.
I love what I do for a living, and I know I’m privileged to get paid for typing words on the internet, but that doesn’t mean I want to spend most of my time doing it.
As a creator/entrepreneur, there’s always more to do: writing one more post, replying to one more email, dealing with one more client,..
The gist is to do less, so you can collect stories and memories instead of working hours.
👉 Want to write online so you can eventually move to a 4-day workweek? I’ll help you get started.
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