LordAlex Leon | Flash Platform Consultant [ Flash | Flex | AIR ]- Montreal, Quebec, Canada: Enjoying a 4 days work week.

I recently made theÂ decisionÂ of shortening my work week to 4 days.Â Working 4 days a week (8 hour a day) and then my weekend starts on friday.

After experiencing a near burn out I realized in our field we are encouraged to push ourselves to the limit, if you are tired drink aÂ red bullÂ or any other energy drink is the motto and keep going until wee hours in the morning.

Just about 3 weeks ago near finishing a project IÂ startedÂ experiencing a strong feeling ofÂ anxiety, momentary dizziness, Â lack of concentration and a sudden feeling ofÂ tiredness that would las 15 minutes or soÂ to the point that I became aware something was not quite right.

I called my doctor and I started describing the symptoms heÂ immediately said: you are getting the symptoms of an anxiety attack, due to prolonged hours of work and stress. He prescribed some R&R time and warned me to slow the pace for a while along with with someÂ exerciseÂ and healthy food.Â

Further more I was told latelyÂ anxietyÂ attacks are an epidemic on programmers or professional in the software development industry. I don't have any stats to confirm this, but I can believe it.

This prompted me to reconsider my pattern of work and made me realize indeed these last few years has been filled with intense work and very long hours filled with pressure from getting to meet deadlines or simply deliver more in less time.

I started looking at blogs and sites that discuss new ways of managing work and came over this idea of the 4 day work week and decided to give it a try. AlsoÂ cuttingÂ back on energy drinks and pop. IÂ substitutedÂ all these with juice and simple cold water.

Having a 3 days weekend has many advantages, being now a father and all, it gives me an extra day to do the things you can't avoid like doing groceries, doing the laundry etc, leaving us (me and theÂ family) Â 2 full days to really do fun stuff and spend more quality time with the family.

I will beÂ postingÂ more about this in the days to come. See how this works out long term.

Feel free to post here any innovative ideas to manage work or if you have experienced similar need to re-organize you work life.

5 Comments:

At June 20, 2008 , Savvas Malamas said...: Good luck with that, sounds a great idea.
I will "assume" that I don't understand the symptoms because it's not the right time since after a full year of free lancing and a lot of free time I'll start working full time again starting this Monday. I shouldn't feel any of these..
Anyway, I'm looking forward to know how it works for you.
Good luck.
At June 20, 2008 , LordAlex Leon said...: This is not related to freelancing. I think in my case I just took a few few too many projects one after the other without taking proper time to rest.

I think a common misconception is that you get a lot of time free when you become a freelancer, but often enough it is not the case.
At October 09, 2008 , Mark said...: I agree if you don't pace yourself you can find that one project just overlaps another. I think I had more free time when I worked in a dev shop lol.
At October 20, 2008 , Kris Meister said...: Please do post back.

I'm a freelance flash dev as well and the last time I got more than 4-5 hours of sleep on weeknight is too long to remember.
At December 17, 2008 , Stellar said...: hi,I started looking at blogs and sites that discuss new ways of managing work and came over this idea of the 4 day work week and decided to give it a try.

rocky

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