I did 4-days-a-week for a few years at a startup. I was as-productive, or potentially moreso (difficult to determine, since I started the job on that schedule). Initially I intended my day off to be flexible, but it was easiest for me and people I worked with, to be off the same day every week. I tried a few things, and Friday worked the best, for consistent 3-day weekends. Wednesday did not work for me, as it broke up my week too much and made it difficult to get into the flow.

I remember having a realization one Tuesday early on, that I "only" had 2 more days until the end of the week, so I better get cracking! This was a striking contrast to the 5-day workweek, in which I would take more breaks and goof off more. Also, with a 2-day weekend, I feel like I spent 1.5 days recovering and doing life errands, and only by Sunday evening did I have any energy for my personal projects, and then of course it's hard to get into anything because I only had a few hours and had to get reasonable sleep before the workweek started the next morning.

With consistent 3-day weekends, I would still need the same 1.5 days to catch up on life, but errands were easier to squeeze in on Fridays, and I would have the same energy for personal side projects...but starting on Saturday evening instead. Now I could get into something for a few hours on Saturday evening, stay up late hacking if I wanted, and spend all Sunday continuing with it. Enough time to make some real progress. The difference in my personal satisfaction between 4- and 5- day weeks was night-and-day.

The common assumption for someone who wants to work 4-day-a-week is that they want to work as little as possible, and 4-days is what they think they can get away with (either socially or salary-wise). Well, I tried 3-day weeks briefly, and it wasn't really that great. 3 days wasn't quite enough to get fully absorbed into my paid work each week, and I felt like (and was treated more like) a part-timer. I also tried 32 hours over 5 days (~6 hours a day, or 3x 8 + 2x 4), and it felt more like an "easier" traditional work schedule, but it didn't leave me the same capacity for my personal endeavors, even though the hours should have been similar. (Maybe because I'm a night owl, so being able to stay up late and sleep in completely changes the tone of the day for me.)

4-days a week with consistent 3-day weekends was definitively the best work schedule I've ever had.

While not fully matching your question: I've done 4/10's (We did Mon-Thur with a full 3-day weekend) for long stints and both myself and my crews loved it. That extra day at home was a huge boon especially for the parents wanting more time with their kids, or anyone who had some time consuming crafty kind of hobbies. One of my guys finished a hand-made canoe about 3 months faster than he'd figured he would.

As for the working side of it, we found ourselves more efficient as we got more done in longer days than we would have with less time each day.

For me, just the plain business day available to do errands that would have otherwise required me to pull long lunches or half days at work was a huge help. And on a more personal note: an extra weekend day gave my introvert ass a day to myself to catch up on the reading I wanted to do, or study something, whatever, while still having the 'normal' weekend to attend a bbq or party or some other thing my more social friends were always organizing.

As saulpw said in a sister comment:

> 4-days a week with consistent 3-day weekends was definitively the best work schedule I've ever had.

Totally, 110% agree.

https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=philmcp runs https://4dayweek.io

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32544315

At one point I had so much PTO built up that I was asked to reduce it. I took 6 months of Mondays off.

It was great, I got so much done on personal projects, and it was convenient having a day off during business hours too. It sucked going back to 5 day weeks.

I didn't track my work productivity, but I'm usually a very productive person anyway.

At one of my first jobs I negotiated two raises into less hours (i.e. taking less hours instead of more money), so going from 40 hours/week to 36 hours/week and then 32 hours/week for the same salary.

For me the change from 40 to 36 was more significant, in that that was enough to schedule all my errands on the one afternoon per week I was off, ensuring that my weekend was always a real weekend with time to relax and hang out with friends.

Even stuff where your employer should just give you time off for (e.g. going to the dentist and stuff like that), is just less hassle if you can just schedule that in your errand day/afternoon.

I am doing it mandated by my city.

Valencia, Spain, has tweaked the local bank holidays to have at least one bank holiday in 5 consecutive weeks.

I am in the 4th one and I love it. Less stressed, more rest. One more day to get more time with family and finish those home related tasks that are always postponed.