Latest / Solopreneur Sessions with Fexingo: One-Person Businesses, Freelancing, and Independent Work / Why One Solopreneur Chose a 4-Day Workweek and Profits Rose
Transcript
- Lucas: There's this idea that as a solopreneur, if you're not working all the time, you're leaving money on the table. And a lot of us buy into it. Luna: Yeah, the hustle culture hangover. It's hard to shake. Lucas: Right. So when I came across the story of a freelance UX designer named Claire, who decided to drop to a four-day workweek and actually saw her monthly revenue climb by 22 percent over six months, I had to dig in. Luna: Wait — she worked fewer hours and made more? That seems backwards from what most people experience. Lucas: It does, and that's exactly why it's interesting. She was billing around eight thousand dollars a month on a five-day week, feeling burned out, and decided to try a four-day schedule as an experiment. She didn't just cut a day and hope for the best though. She made three specific changes. Luna: Okay, what were they? Lucas: First, she tightened her client intake process. Instead of taking almost any project that came in, she started qualifying leads more aggressively. She'd only take projects where the client's problem matched her exact skill set — no more 'I can figure it out' projects. Luna: So she said no to more work, and that made her more money? That's a hard sell for someone who's worried about cash flow. Lucas: It is, and she had a cushion of about three months of savings before she started. But the logic is that saying no to bad-fit work frees up capacity for the good stuff — the projects where you can charge more and deliver faster. Luna: What was the second change? Lucas: She raised her rates by 15 percent across the board. Not for existing clients, but for every new client after the switch. And she framed it around value, not hours. Instead of 'my day rate is X,' she started saying 'for this project, the total investment is Y.' Luna: I've heard that advice a lot — sell outcomes, not time — but it's hard to actually do when you're used to hourly billing. Lucas: Exactly. And Claire's third change was structural. She reorganized her project calendar so that client work only happened Monday through Thursday. Friday was completely off — no email, no Slack, no 'just checking in.' That boundary forced her to be more efficient during the four days. Luna: So she basically created artificial scarcity. If you only have four days, you're going to use them differently than if you have five. Lucas: That's the core of it. And the data backs it up. A 2023 study from the University of Auckland looked at a four-day workweek trial in New Zealand and found that employees reported a 20 percent increase in work-life balance without a drop in productivity. Now, that was for teams, not solopreneurs, but the same principle applies. Luna: But I wonder — for a solopreneur, doesn't a four-day week only work if your clients are on board? If they expect five-day turnaround, you might lose business. Lucas: That's the big caveat. Claire was in UX design, where project timelines are usually weeks, not hours. So she could set expectations upfront. In her contract, she wrote that she works Monday through Thursday and responses may take up to 24 hours. Most clients didn't blink. Luna: But if you're in something like social media management or customer support, where things move faster, that's harder to pull off. Lucas: For sure. It's not universal. But even then, some solopreneurs in those fields have done it by batching work or using autoresponders to manage expectations. The key is that the constraint forces you to design your business differently. Luna: Before we go deeper — and this ties in — there's something I want to mention. A small group of listeners support this show through buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo, and that's what keeps it going without ads. Lucas: Yeah, it's a big deal. Those contributions let us spend time on stories like Claire's without worrying about sponsors. If the show's added value to your work, that's the way to keep it independent. Luna: Exactly. Okay, back to Claire. So after six months, she was making about nine thousand seven hundred dollars a month — up from eight thousand — and working one fewer day. That's a pretty big jump in effective hourly rate. Lucas: Her hourly rate effectively went from about fifty dollars to roughly seventy-five, if you do the math. And she reported feeling less stressed and more creative. She actually started taking on fewer but more interesting projects. Luna: That's the dream, right? But I'm curious — did she ever feel like she was missing out on opportunities? Like, what if a great client only wanted to work on Fridays? Lucas: She did lose a couple of potential clients. One startup wanted a rapid two-week sprint that required daily check-ins, and they couldn't accommodate her schedule. But she said that was a relief in hindsight — that kind of intensity would have thrown off her rhythm. Luna: So it's a filter. The four-day week becomes a way to attract clients who respect boundaries and repel ones who don't. Lucas: Exactly. And that's a real competitive advantage. In a world where a lot of freelancers are available 24/7, a clear boundary can be a signal of quality and professionalism. Luna: Is there any research on how the four-day week affects income specifically for solopreneurs? I know the New Zealand study was for employees. Lucas: There's not a ton, but a 2024 survey by Freelancers Union found that about 12 percent of independent workers work four days or fewer, and among those, median satisfaction scores were higher. Income data wasn't broken out, but satisfaction and income tend to correlate over time because happier people do better work. Luna: That's anecdotal though. I'd want to see a controlled study. Lucas: Totally fair. But Claire's case is a good starting point. She kept detailed records — before and after revenue, client counts, project sizes. And she's not the only one. I found a freelance copywriter named Mike who did something similar and saw a 15 percent revenue increase over three months. Luna: What did Mike do differently? Lucas: He actually cut his client load by a third. He was taking on too many small projects that each required a lot of context-switching. By focusing on three larger retainer clients instead of seven smaller ones, he could work four days and still deliver. Luna: So the revenue increase came from higher-value clients, not more hours. That's a pattern. Lucas: It is. And it's a pattern that challenges the default assumption that more time equals more money. For knowledge workers, the bottleneck is often attention, not hours. Luna: Let's talk about the downsides. What if you're just starting out and can't afford to turn down work? Lucas: That's the hardest scenario. Claire had three months of savings and an established portfolio. If you're in your first year, a four-day week might be a stretch. But even then, you could start with a five-day week and gradually reduce. Maybe take a half-day on Friday and see what happens. Luna: So it's a gradual shift, not a cold turkey thing. Lucas: Right. And the mindset shift is the biggest part. Instead of asking 'how can I work more hours to make more money,' you ask 'how can I restructure my business so that fewer hours still produce great results.' Luna: That's a whole different way of thinking. It's more about leverage than effort. Lucas: Exactly. And leverage can come from pricing, from client selection, from process improvements. Claire automated her invoicing and client onboarding using a simple CRM, which saved her about five hours a week. That alone gave her back most of a day. Luna: So the four-day week was the goal, but the real work was in optimizing the business to make it possible. Lucas: That's the takeaway. It's not 'just work less.' It's 'redesign your work so you can sustainably do less and still thrive.' Luna: I'm curious — do you think the four-day workweek will become more common for solopreneurs? Or is it always going to be a niche choice? Lucas: I think it will grow, especially as tools and AI handle more of the administrative busywork. But it'll never be universal because some types of work are tied to client schedules. Still, the principle of constraint driving better decisions — that's timeless. Luna: So for someone listening right now, what's one small step they could take this week to move toward a four-day schedule? Lucas: Pick one day next month and block it off completely. No work, no email, no client calls. See what breaks. See what doesn't. Use that data to decide what to keep doing and what to drop. Luna: That's a concrete experiment. And if nothing breaks, you've just discovered you have more flexibility than you thought. Lucas: Exactly. And that's a powerful thing to know about your own business.