The big question is, will people continue to slack off during work hours and lose productivity? I do spend a lot of time in between tasks decompressing from one and gearing up for the next. I'm not sure how that would translate if I just tried to collect all that "slack" time up into a separate day.
At the beginning of the Covid shutdowns, my company did go to a 4-day work week. It was great (although our pay was adjusted). I don't think our productivity suffered, but it's kind of hard to estimate because there were a lot of other unusual variables, like the supply chain issues and variable work schedules of people in other companies.
But that is just true if you are underperforming right now, or are too Conformable in a shitty job. There is always some doc too improve, some stack to update, a new issue to be fixed, a meeting that could be better prepared, a backlog to be improved.. People are just "if nobody says me what to do, then I can just slack off"
> The big question is, will people continue to slack off during work hours and lose productivity?
You will. No skin in the game, deliver or not deliver, there is mostly no consequence, boring work, company needs you.. I did the same. I was working 36 hours/week (friday free) until I realized, that there was a lot of things to do and to be done, but the team was just "naah, personal life FIRST".
> I already spend an embarrassing amount of time slacking off daily
Maybe you could spend this time, improving the doc, refactoring some specs or learning something new. I'm pretty sure there is something that you could automate or improve.
> One thing I feel like a lot of people don't realize is just how big a difference it is to go from a 5-day week to a 4-day week.
Na, when you are there, you will think: "actually I can do the same work in 3-day week". But actually you can't! You are probably slacking off instead of work your 40 hours/week, not preparing yourself for the meetings, not excelling at all.. People just forgot how to work.