---
type: "article"
title: "What actually happened when we tried a four-day week"
summary: "Three months, one team, honest numbers. It's not the productivity miracle the headlines promise, but it's not nothing."
newsletter: "The Weekly Shift"
newsletter_handle: "weekly-shift"
newsletter_url: "https://staging.in.usecommune.com/n/weekly-shift"
author: "Fran Méndez (@fmvilas)"
published: "2026-08-09T08:30:00.000Z"
canonical_url: "https://staging.in.usecommune.com/n/weekly-shift/a/the-four-day-experiment"
markdown_url: "https://staging.in.usecommune.com/n/weekly-shift/a/the-four-day-experiment.md"
chat_url: "https://staging.in.usecommune.com/n/weekly-shift/a/the-four-day-experiment/chat"
body_source: "native"
likes: 3
replies: 0
body_words: 77
---

# What actually happened when we tried a four-day week

We tried it for a quarter. Here's the unglamorous truth about the four-day week.

## The good

People protected Friday-as-off ferociously, which meant Monday-to-Thursday got sharper. Low-value work was the first thing cut.

## The hard

Anything that depended on other companies' schedules got awkward. Support coverage needed a real plan, not a vibe.

> The four-day week didn't give us more output. It gave us less waste. Those aren't the same thing, and the difference matters.

***

## Discussion

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