[edroche]

This is the biggest thing I miss from my consulting days. I would never work a 5-day week. It would either be a 3-day or 4-day week, leaving lots of time for travel, family and hobbies.

Sadly, I could never see our clients accepting any business day where we are not available during regular business hours.

[patio11]

Clients are surprisingly willing to deal with that. It may be less of a hard constraint than you think it is, particularly if you train your clients to expect that type of working relationship.

I had an interesting call with a doctor client recently. "I didn't notice a number on your website." "That's correct." "So how am I supposed to get in touch with you?" "I recommend email." "But you only respond to email a day later." "That's correct." "Shouldn't you make yourself more available to your customers?" "With respect, doctor, I'm exactly as available as I wish to be."

You would think she'd be mad after a conversation including that, but she actually left happy, because I was able to fix her problem.

[kyllo]

Kind of ironic that a doctor would say that to you. Just try getting a doctor's direct line or cell. It's almost impossible, they have receptionists because they'd be overwhelmed with patients calling them with stupid questions all day if they didn't.

Of course, you could also just hire a remote assistant to field phone calls for you if you wanted.

[patio11]

Working on it, but since I don't have one yet and was not returning voicemail reliably I hid the number.

[exstudent]

Maybe I'm parsing your comment incorrectly, but do you mean that you used to have clients that allowed you to make your own schedule but you no longer do? Out of curiosity, what caused the change?

I firmly believe we'll see more people move to a consulting model where they work far fewer hours, are more productive and make as much or more money as before.