The first time I said it, I think I was in high school. “Why is the work week five days long, and the weekend only two? Why don’t we cut the workweek back to four days?”

I know I said it often back when I worked in corporate radio.

Then, many years later, I read The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. His proposal that one can work only four hours a week made my ambition to work only four days a week seem modest by comparison.I immediately decided to cut my workweek back to four days.

It worked great for a while, then my work week crept back up to five days… then six… then seven.

I worked myself down to a frazzle, repented, and went back to the four-day workweek.

I repeated the cycle a few times.

What I’ve learned is, it takes discipline, but it’s possible to work only four days a week. More encouraging, my experience shows me that I’m actually more productive and more profitable when I practice this schedule.

Now, here are my tips for how to successfully work a four-day workweek.

The simple act of compressing your work week to four days will have a positive effect on your productivity all by itself. In fact, it will force you to become more conscious of how productive you actually are. My experience, and that of my friends and colleagues who have tried this, shows me that you will end up producing more work product in four days than you did in five. Or six. Or seven.

Question: what techniques have made you more productive, while simultaneously reducing the actual hours you work?