- The fundraising platform Kickstarter moved to a 32-hour workweek after a successful trial last year.
- Former marketing manager Brooke McDaniel said the four-day schedule increased her productivity.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Brooke McDaniel, a 32-year-old former marketing automation manager for Kickstarter, based in New York City. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
I was a marketing automation manager for Kickstarter from August 2021 until March 2023. I was proud of the product, and I felt good about working to make it successful, so it was a positive and worthwhile experience I don't take for granted.
I used my technical skills and experience to help creative projects come to life, which put me more in touch with my own creative hobbies. It was good for my soul in many ways.
Last April, Kickstarter began a trial of a 4-day workweek
I started a six-month road trip when the office closed and everyone moved to remote work. The company transitioned to a four-day workweek while I was on the road. I went to 21 national parks across 19 states, stayed at Airbnbs, and got to experience the country all while I was still working full time. It was great.
Remote work was the most important factor for a trip like mine, but knowing the four-day workweek was coming gave me additional motivation. Part of the reason I went on the trip was that I worried if I stayed in New York, where I already had my routine in place, I might not take advantage of the day off. I wanted to start the experience of building an entirely new routine and doing something different instead of just sleeping in.
Kickstarter gave us Fridays off, and I tried to use that time for me
Traveling and working at the same time helped me manage my time better. On the road, I largely kept East Coast hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. I always felt encouraged to be flexible with my non-meeting times if I needed to, based on time zones while traveling or other needs while home in New York.
On Fridays, I didn't have a set schedule. I could go for a 5-mile walk if I wanted to, and no one would come looking for me. Then I usually caught up on cooking and cleaning and had people over for dinner on Friday night.
Before the four-day week, I wasn't able to do as much socially if I was working all day or going into the office. It was a very fun and humanizing change for me.
Some people still did a bit of work on Fridays
It was a mix across the company. It was clearly communicated that there was no pressure to respond to emails, but we have a globally distributed workforce, so people send Slacks at all times of the day and night from different time zones. There was an expectation that we would respond when we logged on next.
I worked later into the evening or on Fridays occasionally, but not weekly. Sometimes, things would come up that I needed to deal with, but it still felt a lot better to me to work for an hour or two on a Friday than the whole day.
Decreased working hours did mean meetings cut into focus time. I welcomed the challenge to ensure my time outside of meetings was more productive, as I knew that being less focused meant I would be working over the 32 hours required of me per week.
There was an office in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, but during my time at the company, it was never open for people to go into. It's actually up for sale now, as the company has no intention of going back to in-office work.
Employee engagement improved when we moved to 4 days
The company was more successful in hitting its quarterly goals, too. Anecdotally, I also heard that we started getting significantly more job applications for any role that we posted.
I saw two noticeable changes in what the workplace felt like.
First, people were more confident in controlling their schedule. Colleagues communicated that they needed time to focus on a particular project, or they were having a day with no meetings and asking people to send notes rather than attending every meeting they were invited to.
The other interesting thing came from our Slack thread on Mondays, when everyone shared how they spent their three-day weekend.
We were encouraged to send pictures of what we got up to, and it was really nice to get a more human glimpse of my coworkers. For example, one person volunteered in her daughter's class on Fridays, and another cleaned up trash on the Hudson River.
When we just had a normal weekend, I think people felt more protective of their time. After the switch, people were more open to sharing what they did on Friday.
All in all, it made me more aware of how I spend my time
The work-life balance that a four-day workweek offered me was incredible. I've never traveled more, spent so much time with the people I love, had a cleaner apartment, or had so much uninterrupted time to be active.
I also started being a lot smarter about the way I worked, which was an interesting exercise, because not many people get a chance to do that 10 years into their career. I'm now much more intentional about the time I spend in meetings, in the effort I put toward preparation and clarification, and in having the confidence to miss some meetings where I'm not critical.
I started tracking tasks entirely digitally, so I could be productive no matter where I was working, and I kept more thorough notes than at any other point in my career to cut down on confusion about follow-ups.
I recently left Kickstarter for a new job with a five-day workweek
Even though leaving a four-day workweek was in the "con" column of my considerations, I joined Finn, a car-subscription company I've followed since they launched in the US last year. Helping to scale a startup diversifying the retail-car market with affordable and sustainable options alongside a really bright team was too good of an opportunity for me to pass up.
I'm thrilled to be working with coworkers in an office again. I now work in a hybrid environment, so I'm able to mix in-office days with the team with remote days. I'm also finding that since I work for a company headquartered in Germany from Eastern time, my meetings tend to be front-loaded in the morning, which gives me flexibility and balance at the end of my work day.