Introduction

This syllabus is based on the design course I first developed and used at 4 Day Week Global. It’s been used by hundreds of companies and nonprofits, who have been the subject of global media attention. Naturally, over the years the course has evolved somewhat, as we’ve learned more about what works and doesn’t, and what most organizations need.

My book Shorter: Work Better, Smarter and Less—Here’s How is a global tour of the movement, and talks about how companies in the US, Europe, Australia, Japan and Korea design and implement shorter weeks. I highly recommend using it as a guide for your planning, and include callouts to relevant sections in each session. You can get it on Amazon, or your favorite local bookstore.

My paid program offers a much updated version of this syllabus, supported by a wide variety of exercises; templates; copies of strategic plans, policies, contracts, and other artifacts from other 4-day week organizations; and both in-person and online AI-driven support. If the free course is like a cookbook, the paid course is a catered dinner for twelve, prepared at your house, customized to your particular preferences and tastes.

If you want to get in touch to learn more about my work, email or schedule a call.

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Part 1: Planning Phase

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Deciding on strategic issues like the length and objectives of the pilot; how outcomes will be measured; communications strategy; HR and vacation policy during the trial.

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Read:

• Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, "Afterword: 5 Steps to a 4-Day Week," from Work Less Do More: Designing the 4 Day Week (Penguin Business, 2023). This was written for the paperback version of my book, and gives a high-level overview of the design process that most organizations follow.
• Throughout your planning and trial, I recommend consulting the first-hand accounts of 4-day week organizations. They come from a wide range of companies, nonprofits, and government agencies, answer all kinds of practical questions about how to design and implement a shorter workweek, and will help you see how other leaders have dealt with the challenges you’re facing. </aside>

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Step 1: Learn about Design Thinking, Planning and Prototyping

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Read:

• Alex Soojung-Kim Pang, Shorter, pp. 1-17, 19-33, 168-172 explain the principles behind design thinking, which many early adopters (and many creative firms today) in their 4-day week planning.
• “3 Design Thinking Mindsets for Nonprofit Success.” A short piece by product designer Naily Nevarez on the value of design thinking for nonprofits.
• This page on design thinking for cultural entrepreneurs from the nonprofit National Arts Strategies is good. The videos on design action and empathy are especially relevant to designing 4-day weeks.
• Tim Brown & Jocelyn Wyatt, "Design Thinking for Social Innovation," Stanford Social Innovation Review (Winter 2010). How "design thinking allows high-impact solutions to social problems to bubble up from below."
• Jenna Kutcher, “4-Day Workweek Dos and Don’ts (According to Our Team!)” talks about the importance of empowering workers.
• The Mix Global, Four: What Is It Good For? provides a great overview of the benefits of a 4-day week. </aside>

The 4-day week movement has its origins in companies built on design thinking, and it shows. Design thinking and the arts of planning and prototyping are central to the success of the movement. The idea that people can design time, just like they design new products or services, is counterintuitive, but a powerful tool in your planning toolkit.

To get started, I’ve selected several articles that will introduce you to design thinking, and explain how it’s been used to help redesign time and workdays.

When you talk to people at 4-day week companies, and listen to what they say about how designing thinking helped them, a few themes emerge:

• Invite everyone into the process. Recognizing that the most enduring design solutions are made with users, not by designers alone. In this context, it means involving as much of your Organization as you can, people are experts about their own jobs, and experienced workers often have great ideas about how they could make their work better. You should hardest that when redesigning your workdays.
• Experiment constantly. Companies try all kinds of things to boost, efficiency, improve, collaboration, deep and focus, and create more time for everyone.
• Build on failure. Lots of experiments fail, and sometimes companies fall back into old habits. But if you can share successes, learn from your failures, and develop an experimental mindset that lets you build on both, you’ll succeed in the long run.

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Step 2: Wireframe your Workweek

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Read:

• Pang, Shorter, pp. 81-98, on the kinds of schedules organizations choose and how.
• Arianne Foulks, "How Switching to a Four Day Week Improves Productivity" at Aeolidia (a 2022 program alum). This is a comprehensive overview of Aeolidia’s experience with the 4-day week, from initial planning to impacts 18 months later.
• Jenna Kutcher, “Behind the Scenes of Our 4-Day Work Week Experiment” explains how Kutcher organized the 4-day week at her eponymous digital marketing firm.
• Victoria Hammond, “How we launched a 4 day working week during a global pandemic,” discusses PCN’s decision to run a year-long trial. </aside>

There are several kinds of shorter workweeks that organizations choose. About two-thirds of the organizations I write about in SHORTER close their office for three days a week. In others, though take different days off so they organization can keep its current hours, or different departments will work on different schedules depending on the nature of their work. Organizations that can’t move to 4-day weeks might instead move to 6-hour days, or even shorten hours for workers while expanding opening hours.