[Sorgam]

My opinion is that people who are motivated to do things or make money work as much as they can to work towards what they want. Sitting around would be frustrating. That doesn't mean they need to work so much to survive, they just want to.

Personally I've never done that. I often worked 3 day weeks. Now I do programming at home whenever I feel like and have a low-hours day job. I make enough money to be comfortable and it's quite nice.

I think the predictions have come true - for anyone who wants it.

[bshimmin]

For anyone who wants it? Surely you mean for some people who want it. People with in-demand skill-sets can fashion these sorts of working situations, certainly; other people are grateful to have as many hours of work as they can get and would gladly take more if it helped them in their struggles to pay the bills. I'm sure most people would work less if they could afford to, but that isn't an option for an awful lot of people.

[Sorgam]

It was unskilled laboring work. Others in my situation had criminal records and drug habits but they could do it too. Now I do programming for my own business so no clients to worry about, just self-pressure to give customers what they want, but without any deadlines or obligations.

The employment market today might not be quite the same, but it's often surprisingly easy to find casual work if you lower your expectations. And it pays enough to live on while also giving you free time for your hobbies, which for me turned into money after some years.

[seivadmas]

This also depends on where you live, and your responsibilities. I lived for six months in western Australia working only 2-3 days a week as a bartender. Pay was about $160 per day, which works out to $1500-$2000 per month.

With no kids or dependents, this is more than enough to live on. I paid rent and food comfortably, had plenty of time to learn guitar, go outside and skateboard, meet girls and even had enough leftover to buy myself a new Macbook Pro. Plus it was a fun and social job.

You could live on even less if you were determined, for inspiration on frugal living read Walden by Henry David Thoreau.

Priorities change though - right now I suppose I 'work' about 10 hours a day, six days a week. This is because I decided I was going to learn to code and got motivated and driven to become good at it. Building a skill takes a lot of hours of focus and concentration but it's not 'work' if you get excited about it.

[digital-rubber]

Plus! you don't need to spend money on drinks :P

[zikzak]

Do you get paid for the programming that you do this way? I've always dreamed of a world where I can "take a contact when I feel like working" or "just work a few hours a day" but if someone hires me they want as much of my time as I can give them.

Telling a client that I only work three hours a day so their projects will take twice as long as they have estimated doesn't seem like a good pitch.

How do you handle this?

I have been in a situation where I had one main client and several smaller ones. The main client had endless work and the person I was contracting thorough at the time would only guarantee me for 20h per week to the main client but this was only so he could rent me out to others at the same time. If I had said I only want the 20h I wonder what he would have done. It was definitely enough billing to pay my salary but then he has to find another programmer to go my lost time, etc.

Now I work full time for a business. I definitely can't do anything less that 40h per week... It's full time position.

I have a chronic illness that involves fatigue and is likely to worsen over time so figuring out how I can get to 20h a week is a pretty real thing for me. Any advice would be welcome.

[Sorgam]

My programming is a hobby that turned into a business. It's just one application that I write and sell online. I think the reason it works (just about) is that my market is a niche of professionals. Usually their boss pays for it, so they're not afraid of spending money. Also, most of my competitors are either astronomically priced (get a site visit from their salesman to help decide what options you want) or barely usable (need to learn a huge command language) open source.

[zikzak]

Thank you for responding. I am still looking for that thing for me. :)

[0x5f3759df-i]

What types of companies would let you only work 3 day weeks?

I would gladly give up money for more free time but that isn't a deal companies seem to want to make.

[acheron]

I do it, though I do 30 hours so it's three 10-hour days, and I get 75% of my "normal" salary. I started out full time, and after about a year or so I went to my manager and said "how about I work 30 hours?" and he said "sure".

It's a big company which HN would probably scoff at, and we work with super uncool things like Oracle. But it's just a job, and I get to spend Mondays and Fridays with my young kids.

[justincormack]

A lot of people just dont ask.

[yodsanklai]

When I was a young graduate, I didn't feel like working 5 days a week. I had many activities that I didn't want to sacrifice.

At job interviews, I asked about part-time and surprisingly, some companies were fine with that. At least, until I got hired, then I was quickly pressured to switch to full time (eventually, I moved to academics which suits me better).

[Sorgam]

My day job is a school teacher in China. You sometimes have to find a country that suits your lifestyle to do the low hours thing.

I'd guess 90% of HNers could very easily walk into a job just like mine too.

[ibmthrowaway218]

IBM certainly do (I work part time for them in a dev role).

[danohuiginn]

Large institutions can be surprisingly good about this. Government jobs in the UK, for instance, tend to be pretty open to job-shares. Look for companies supportive of working mothers -- if they have systems in place for parents to work part-time, they may well be prepared to accommodate you on similar terms.

[bjelkeman-again]

They exist, we have people working from 50-90%, depending on position and what people want.

[dimitris99]

I am a developer as well but I struggle to put anything less than 5 days a week. I'd be really interested to know how you managed to find work that pays so well that you can afford to work only 3 days.

[monort]

Do you think you can't live frugally on 3/5 of your wage?

[sanxiyn]

Usually, the problem is finding 3 days a week job that pays 3/5, not deciding to live on 3/5 wage.