Today is my 5th day of my new 4-day work week. A couple of weeks ago I decided, that I need some more spare time and want to have less working hours. Thanks to the two CEOs of the company I work for – both of them act as my bosses – this week will be my first 4-day work week of many more to come. I’m really looking forward to this huge add-on to my spare time, which will most of the time be Friday each week.
Whenever I told friends and colleagues about my plans or – later on – about the company allowance, I was asked for reasons, why I did this. I’ll „earn“ a loss of salary together with a loss of vacation days, so this question is eligible. Well… In the last months I did some deep thinking about myself, my role in the society, what I want to accomplish for me and my environment/friends, and where/what I want to be in a few years from now. Partly, those thoughts were initiated and accelerated by some gallbladder disease I suffered from beginning this year, partly I was highly unmotivated at my day job as a Unix systems engineer and consultant. Coming all together, I did some calculation on my monthly bills and decided, there’s headroom enough to waive some money in order to gain some more quality in (my) life.
People also ask me, what my plans are, what I intend to do in the gained spare time. Well… There is quite a huge pile of unread books (grows quicker than I can read off), I will intensify my career as a spare time drummer. There are lots of ideas in my head for macro photography, my soldering iron is full of dust, there is a microcontroller development board under the same dust layer begging for attention for months already. Then there occasionally is some house work to do. Cooking for Her, laundry, dishes. And then there is some ongoing discussion and negotiation with some friends and family about an alternative, very nature and people friendly way for our future living, which also needs some time which I am willing to spend. Besides all that and knowing me for several years now, I’m pretty sure, there won’t raise any boredom :-) From time to time, some outcome will be posted here in this blog.
I’m really looking forward to this one more free day a week and I’m really thankful to my company for engaging in my wish. Thank you!
