I have been seeing a disturbing trend in the startup world. A behavior that plagues the corporate world and also the main reason why I left the corporate world is also infecting our beautiful little universe. That trend is: Working too hard.

Yes, I’ve seen it happen. People working late are viewed as heroes and working on weekends is already considered a norm. Not doing so would make you the mockery of your society. It doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t matter how many hours you spent working, it’s the results that matter.

Need an example? Check out the way Ryan Carson runs his business, by working only 4 days a week yet still makes a profitable ($3 million per year revenue) business.

Now, I can totally guess what’s on your mind (as quoted from thinkvitamin.com):

“I have SOOO much to do I can hardly fit it into five days never mind four!” You may think that you have five days of work to do but you don’t. Again, you will always fill your time and there will always be more work to do. Take a deep breath, re-organise your to-do list and work like crazy. It can be done.

Yes, it can be done. I won’t discuss on how to actually do it. Ryan Carson covered that in the article above. I’m just here to persuade you to improve your quality of life.

I’ve been experimenting with working 4 hours/day and it’s actually pretty funny. I actually accomplish more working 4 hours/day than 8 hours/day. I know I have a very limited time span so I use it very efficiently. Imagine having 50% more time for you, wouldn’t that be awesome?

The results are great. My mind is as creative as it can be, I suffer less and less mind-block and I’m generally happier as a person. I now have time to play basketball twice a week and spend my whole weekend with my wife and daughter. My company had the best month of sales in April in our 2 years of operations with a growth of almost 80% in one month! Life is good.

Having more time means you can hang out with your friends and family more, play basketball twice a week like you’ve been planning to for years and actually coming to the concerts that you’ve always missed.

Now to sum it all up, you can ask yourself this question: Do you want to be on your death bed and regret not having time to do the things you want to do? Or do you actually want to do it now while you still can?

Take up the 4 work days a week challenge and let me know how it goes.

Aria Rajasa is the CEO of gantibaju.com, a clothing startup not dissimilar to Threadless but with a touch of Indonesia and a very strong design community. His passion in entrepreneurship has gotten him to start a number of companies since leaving university.

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