One day per week

You can’t work one day per week, believe me I’ve tried. I’ll qualify that, you can’t work one day per week and get anything done, at least not in my line of work. Let me explain.

I’ve been gradually reducing my hours of work, going down to three days a week just over seven years ago, then down to two days a week last year and now down to one. Lucky me! I’m trying to ease my way out of work, at least that’s the plan yet it’s not possible.

The basic problem is that to get anything done on your working day you have to spend some time planning and setting meetings up. This means that you have to work on days that you’re not working. Also, when you do get round to those meetings you come away with things to do, most of which either cannot wait until next week or will take up too much time that you have set aside.

There is no way that you can control your customers or the team that you are working with to only contact you on a set day. Even if you tried, by the time you opened your mailbox it would be either so full you would never get to the bottom of it or it would be empty as everyone had given up on you. You need to spend time when you are not working catching up with emails and appointments to make sure you maximise your single working day.

Also there are things that simply won’t wait. If a customer asks you for something on a Monday and it’s urgent, do you say I’m sorry I only work one day a week? If there is a chance of earning some additional funding but the paperwork needs to be in tomorrow are you going to turn the chance down? Probably not.

As you can’t work only one day per week you are left with two choices (other than giving up altogether).

• Do something every day, or most days, just to keep on top or,
• Have the other four days as a hobby.