Working a 4-day week, running a lifestyle business

Here’s my experience of working a 4-day week, running a lifestyle business.

When Jesse was born, I took the standard two weeks paternity leave off. It went in a blink of an eye and I knew it wasn’t enough.

I set up Every Cloud for added flexibility, a lifestyle business. There had never been a better reason to test that philosophy.

We discussed various options for taking more leave, like half days or a longer paternity stretch. We arrived at the idea of taking Fridays off working a 4-day week, with no particular time scale for a finish date. That was in early April and now over 4 months later, I am still taking Fridays off.

I would love to say I have taken every Friday off, gazed lovingly into Jesse’s eyes and it’s been an easy road. But we know life doesn’t work that way, there have been many positives, and a few challenges, so I thought I would do a post reflecting on the journey so far.

The joys of taking Fridays off

In reality I have taken the majority of Fridays off completely and we have done some lovely trips including the Peak District (see photo), Cannock Chase, and Shugborough Hall. It feels a better day when we get out and do something, especially something as a family in nature. When we don’t do anything, it’s easy for the boundaries to blur, and think ‘I may as well work’.

Only working four days has helped me to be more focussed when I am working,  no wasting hours alternating between Linked in and Facebook. It’s hard to quantify focus and efficiency, especially being in the fog of having a baby, but I feel like I have been a lot more efficient, as I have less time to play with.

It has helped with personal commitments; hospital appointments, visiting nurseries, and seeing family, which in a 5-day week can be a struggle to fit in.

Even on days when I have worked only a couple of hours, it has felt more relaxed. I have also realised Fridays tend to be slow, with less emails anyway so it’s a good day to take off. Maybe others have the same idea? Mwuaha!

The challenges of a 4-day week

The flip side is having 4 days of delivery has been challenging, the time comes and goes and it can feel hard to get everything done. Even though I have been more efficient, time is time when running a service business.

When there’s a bank holiday or personal commitment like a hospital appointment, it feels like there’s hardly any time that week, also do you take both days off? Decisions decisions.

At points I have worked over the weekend, on one hand, it defeats the object, but you do have to be flexible and it has helped me catch up.

The future

I never thought I would be able to take a day a week off but it has been very empowering, being like this is my business, my rules.

We looked around a nursery last week and started in the newborns, then 1-2, 2-3, 3-4-year-olds and it scarily felt like you watching your baby grow up on fast forward.

The time is precious and I will continue on the journey to a 4-day week and see where it goes. There is no point in striving for an ambitious lifestyle business and then not taking advantage of that flexibility.

Here’s where it all started: Building a 6-figure lifestyle service business.