Ever since about 2005 I've only worked 4 days (or less) a week. It's only in the last year I’ve had to go back to 5.
When I worked 4 - I LOVED my 5th day off... it's great being able to get all those odd jobs done. You know - those things that either spoil your weekend (waiting in queues) or you end up trying to squeeze them in during your lunch hour or the working day as they are only weekday things.
Anyway, this week I managed to to get a "5th day" again. There was a lot of context switching (I changed my clothes 4 times which gave me a clue) - but it didn't seem to slow me down too much.
All up I managed to (in this order):
- Spend a couple of hours in the garden (building a new garden bed) - great start to the day while it's cool.
- <clothes change>
- Have a decent swim for the first time in a while
- Drop the kids at kindy and actually have time to stay and play with them for a bit
- Switch my car insurance (procrastinating on this all week)
- Freecycle a load of garden stuff to a friend and to the kindy
- Give away a whole load of clothes and things to charity
- <clothes change>
- Meet up with Gold Coast Tourism people about OSDC proposal (yay - this was very exciting)
- <clothes change>
- Down to the Broadwater parklands to do photos and a test drive of the Zigo with the Gold Coast Bulletin - exhausting, but fun.
- Picked up kids and spent a while playing and chatting to the kindy teachers (I'm usually in and out)
- Played with the kids on the bikes in the street for a while, actually had time to chat with the neighbours!
Despite the busyness - it was a nice day.
The 5th day is awesome. I wonder sometimes, if we all worked only 4 days a week would we be more productive at work in our 4 days? We wouldn't have all the clutter hanging over our heads and we could concentrate on just having fun on the weekends and not spending the whole time on jobs. Would love to see some studies on this - personally, I reckon you would recover the lost day of work though better focus & less stress.