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I have always wanted to work a four day week, and although sometimes I manage to accomplish this, overall what usually happens is quite the opposite and I end up working the weekend too.

But I came across this post from the very, very clever people at Signal37 where they explain quite clearly why working a 4 day week actually works out better for all concerned.

So, from today, on Fridays I don’t work. To clarify, that does not mean that I will not be online. I will probably even check my email. But I will not reply, unless I deem that the world would collapse if I ignored a crisis. And I will probably do a lot of writing, but only if I feel like it. But overall, Friday will be MY day, and to share it with me you have to be invited :-)

It will be an interesting experiment, but a worthwhile one I think. In order for it to be a success, I need to make up the 8 hours in the remaining 32, which translates into making each working hour more productive by working harder and smarter.

Some ways to do that:

• If I don’t keep a schedule, it is possible that I could double my productivity. This is taken from Marc Andreesen’s suggestion to simply not schedule any meetings. At first it sounds insane, but when I think how often I have had to break my work flow to reluctantly go to a meeting, it starts to make sense. Marc’s explains it like this”

When someone emails or calls to say, “Let’s meet on Tuesday at 3″, the appropriate response is: “I’m not keeping a schedule for 2007, so I can’t commit to that, but give me a call on Tuesday at 2:45 and if I’m available, I’ll meet with you.”

• Switch off email during the bulk of the day, so I can focus on task at hand fully. I cannot follow the 4 hour work weeksuggestion of only checking email once a week or so, but I can definitely live with only checking my email at the beginning and end of the day. I’ve heard it is also a good idea to “only touch an email once” ie deal with it immediately. All this will surely help me focus and save me time.

• Ignore the twitter stream I don’t think I am strong enough for this one!

• Stop chit chatting and taking unnecessary 15 minute coffee breaks. I do these to relax, but the whole point now is that I should stay focussed so I can relax properly on Fridays. Of course, I will still coffee, but not while taking a break. Simply sip it while I type.

• Log all time spent on each task for a week, and identify inefficiencies. This will probably be an eye opener.

• Outsource more. This is a big one. I already outsource some of my more mundane tasks to India or somewhere, and this has had a huge boost on time saved. In fact, I think I should write a separate blog post on this, because proper outsourcing can really change your work style, your productivity and - most importantly - your bottom line. However, I want to focus more attention to outsourcing work to companies “down the street”. This way, I can delegate work that I still need to keep a good eye on, without having to hire more staff.

• Make better use of productivity tools and principles, like Remember the Milk, Highrise, Get it Done etc. The learning curve on these is high, I think, but they work for so many people that I should start taking the plunge and making a more formal commitment. On the same note, I need to save time “for the future” by taking time to organize my work space, my filing system (especially delicious bookmarks) and improve my document naming habits.

I have a feeling that once I apply a more disciplined attitude to work, I will realize that not only can I take Friday off, but I can do more in the four day week than I did in the five day one.