Ep 140: The Surprising Truths That 3-Day Workweeks Taught Me About Growing My Multiple-6 Figure Business
Episode Summary
Is your overpacked schedule sabotaging your entrepreneurial dreams?
Learn why adopting a three-day workweek isn't just possible but could be the catalyst for your business's next breakthrough, and how this played out for Jenna in her own business
In this episode, you will:
Know why my business grew the most in the seasons when I was forced to work less—and why I ignored the lesson for far too long.
Learn the hidden beliefs that kept me trapped in overwork (even after I knew better) and the moment everything finally clicked.
See why waiting until you “hit the next milestone” to create freedom is a trap—and how shifting your approach now changes everything.
Stop waiting for the perfect moment—hit play now to discover how working less can transform your business and your life.
Episodes mentioned:
Ep #42: Time and Money: When to Dial It Back
Ep 135: How Lisa Boosted Revenue & Work Life Balance Simultaneously, w/ Lisa Stryker
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This podcast dives into the challenges of leadership, decision making, and delegation, helping women business owners and mompreneurs overcome overwhelm, decision fatigue, and the guilt of working less. Learn to build powerful habits, embrace smarter working, and master time management by streamlining tasks, implementing business systems, and even prioritising self-care. We explore efficiency, productivity, and automation to create passive income, reduce overworking, and finally take time off—without the fear or shame. Say goodbye to imposter syndrome and people pleasing while running a small business: It's time to shift your mindset, reclaim your work-life balance, and thrive!
Full Episode Transcript:
Jenna Harrison: [00:00:00] I used to believe that working less was something I could figure out later. Until life forced my hand and I realized that freedom wasn't the result of success, but the thing that created it.
Welcome to the show that helps women entrepreneurs run profitable, meaningful businesses in just three days a week, without stress, guilt, or sacrificing growth. I'm your host, Jenna Harrison, sharing practical strategies, mindset hacks, and even some woo to help you work smarter, lead boldly, and find true balance.
Let's dive in. Welcome, welcome to the three day work week. New title, but similar focus. And do you not love the disco vibe in the photo? I do. It cracked me up when I saw it. I'm such a lover of the 70s. Both that boho side and the disco side. All of it. Well, actually the rock and the country too, come to think of it.
The 70s was just such a revolutionary [00:01:00] decade. Anyway, if you've been here for a while, you know the Uncommon Way has always been about rewriting the rules. The three day workweek? It's just the next evolution. And don't worry, you can make your workweek exactly what you want it to be. We'll talk more about that in a sec.
Everything I've shared in the past is necessary for creating a three day workweek. So, if you've loved what my clients and I are talking about here, then keep tuning in. But now, you'll just get some more specific advice, too. So, the first obvious question is, why create a three day workweek? And I get it.
At first, it might seem like something to think about later, after you've hit some big milestone. I used to think that way, too. But what I finally figured out changed everything. And that's what we're diving into today. By the end of this episode, you'll know why my business grew the most in the seasons when I was forced to work less, and why I ignored the [00:02:00] lesson for far too long.
You'll learn the hidden beliefs that kept me trapped in overwork, even after I knew better and the moment everything finally clicked, and you'll see why waiting until you hit the next milestone to create freedom is a trap, and how shifting your approach now changes everything. Okay, let's dive in by calling out the two most important things you need to know about the three day workweek.
One. It's really a metaphor and part of a much bigger picture. And two, it improves your business results, not detracts from them, so you owe it to yourself to at least try it out. Now, before you panic, let's clarify what I mean, because I get it. If you're anything like I was, the idea of working less might feel impossible.
In the early days of my business, I was so driven to make it a success that even though I had a newborn, I worked naptimes and evenings [00:03:00] seven days a week for two years. Well, that's not fully true. I'd take off one evening a week to watch a movie with my husband, but only because I felt so guilty about being an absent wife.
But even then, I sought efficiency, like my early content repurposing system. But instead of using that extra Time for downtime, I filled the space with more work. What I didn't realize until later was that since I was so tired, stressed, and overworked, everything I was doing took probably five times as long as it could have.
Until finally life forced my hand. A cross country move during a pandemic and months of living in a hotel room with my two year old. I physically couldn't work much, and yet my business grew. You'd think that would have been my wake up call. But nope, old habits run deep, and I kept falling back into my usual ways of overworking.
And that's why I [00:04:00] totally understand if you feel like a racehorse stuck behind the starting gate. Ready to go, full of energy, but not quite sure how to pace yourself differently. But you also know that the status quo is not sustainable. It's not really the life you want to live. Even though our society has made some great leaps forward and we're no longer willing to slave away for 45 years, thinking that someday we'll retire and we can live well, we're still tied to the thought error Um, everything will change once I reach X milestone.
But the truth is that these patterns become so ingrained that we just start finding new reasons to maintain our old ways of being. So your future self won't thank you for working harder. She will thank you for building smarter. The key to an amazing future is starting it now. I speak from personal experience.
I would [00:05:00] break the overwork cycle for a few days or a week. Only to slip right back. Stress shuts down your ability to problem solve well, so your only solution is to work more. It's a vicious cycle. Whereas when you finally get a great night's sleep, or go for a long run, or a yoga class, all of a sudden you're like, Wait, I can just do XYZ and problem solve.
Or, I could just write the email this way. And you can't even believe that felt like such a huge problem a day ago. Oh, I remember it well. I finally got help. Coaching, therapy, all of it. Turns out, guilt was a big culprit, along with a patterned response that sent me into overfunctioning every time I felt out of control.
Once I saw that, I didn't just change my business, I dove into helping my clients break free too. I started scaling back my hours, and sure enough, my [00:06:00] income kept rising. And of course, I was sharing all my learning with my clients, so their lives and business results started changing too. It's funny because all of them always get surprised by how this work supercharges their business.
They'll create some new result or reach some new milestone after doing less, and then they'll look at me in disbelief and say, it's just so crazy. It's like, yeah, I've heard you say it, Jenna, and I've heard some of my mastermind sisters say it, but wow, it actually works. Yes, it works, and I can tell you why it works.
Business is pretty simple. You provide value for people. You solve problems. Nowhere in that definition does it say that this needs to take a lot of time. We are the ones who overcomplicate it and make it harder. Usually because we're afraid to do the thing that we really need to do, so we spend lots of time doing other things.
But let's be clear. Simplifying your business does [00:07:00] not mean avoiding work. It means being bold enough to make the hard decisions. The ones that free you from busy work, distractions, and unaligned clients. So if you're looking for a way to sit back and have success magically land in your lap, this isn't for you.
But if you're willing to build something smarter so you can work less without earning less, you're in the right place. One of my favorite things about the three day workweek is that introducing constraint naturally helps you solve the problems that you need to solve anyway to get to the next level in your business.
You just solve them earlier. Invariably, you run up against the question, Hmm, how the hell am I going to do this in only 24 hours? At first it seems impossible, and maybe you don't succeed in doing it in 24 hours. Then you figure it out. And the answer is always the process or system or decision or mindset [00:08:00] shift that ushers in a new era.
My natural inclination is to have seven unread books on my nightstand. I don't naturally love constraint, but I've learned that it can lead to stellar results in business. Of course, I always leave open time on my calendar for unstructured time and, you know, ideation, and it's not like I've become a robot.
But when it's time for business, it's time for business. So while I won't make you do anything you don't want to do, I'll probably still keep reminding you that You got the doing part down. No problem. You're good. Adding in that one new thing isn't the answer. Now it's time for the being. For where you're headed, we don't want you overwhelmed, dropping balls here and there and white knuckling.
We need the CEO who is calm, focused, and has healthy boundaries. We want you [00:09:00] being a boss and unlocking your creative genius. So, maybe you'll choose to try working 50 hours instead of 70. And then maybe 30. Maybe you do that in two 15 hour marathon days. Or, like me, you spread your hours out over four days.
The 3 Day Workweek isn't about rigid have tos. It's a metaphor for living life on your own terms and making the impossible possible. It's a very powerful entryway into the uncommon way, which is the name of my company if we haven't yet been properly introduced. But there are many other entryways into this philosophy too.
Because success isn't about how much you work, it's about what you build. You don't get a gold star for working the most hours. You get freedom, impact, and wealth by designing a business that doesn't rely on you 24 7. If deep down you believe that's the better way and you're [00:10:00] ready to build it, then come back next week and the week after.
You need to bombard your brain with evidence that this is possible and start understanding the steps required to get you there. But if you love being busy, you'll probably tune it all out. If you want to feel busy so you can feel successful, Then maybe come back next year. Some entrepreneurs wear busy like a badge of honor.
They pack their schedules, they love it when people say, I don't know how you do it all. And convince themselves that grinding harder is the only way forward. But I have a feeling you already know that's a lie. The real power move? It's building a business that works in three days so you can enjoy all the things in your life that matter.
So that you can pick up the phone and call that friend to celebrate their milestone. Or create a memory for your child by taking them on a surprise picnic. Or actually make it to that get together. Or just have time for something [00:11:00] random. Like, did you know soap carving ASMR is a thing?
Whispering affirmations while sculpting tiny soap animals? I guarantee I'd get a business idea from it, and people would be like, oh yeah, Jenna, the one who's obsessed with soap carving now. No seriously, I've come a long way since the time when I worked 7 days a week for 2 years. It's a very nice life.
And interestingly, it's exactly like the one I was trying to hustle my way to back in the day. It's just that I had to start actually living that way first so I could be the woman who created those results. I've been able to retire my husband early, move my family to our dream location, buy a dream home, and live the Blue Zone lifestyle overseas.
I have a bunch of fun, interesting friends and we're always going on hikes or meeting up for lunch. I go on date nights with my hubby, I get to walk my son to school without rush, and also, [00:12:00] I get to rest. I get moments to truly relax and be present and smell the jasmine. And of course, disappointments happen, things go awry, it's still real life.
But I love feeling like, at least I'm squeezing the juice out of my time on this earth and enjoying all areas of my life, not just one. I think about how precious time is and all the things I used to prioritize ahead of my time. Money, doing things the right way, keeping up with unrealistic standards, but by being brave and questioning all that, and developing the discipline and the mental toughness to create change even when it felt really messy.
And even a little foolish, in the beginning, I've created a life I'm really proud of. Now before we sign off, let's zoom out for a second. Because this isn't just about our personal work [00:13:00] schedules. The way we work shapes the world we live in. And that's why 3 day work weeks matter on a bigger scale. We're evolving capitalism and redefining what success looks like in our society.
Capitalism gets a bad rap because it supposedly prioritizes money above all else. But it's actually about people acting to maximize self interest. Now, for some people, their greatest self interest has been money, at all costs. But these days, people like us don't want to run a company where we put profits above the well being of the employees.
We'd feel worse, not better. So our self interest is not maximized. And if that's true, then we need to look in the mirror and see that we're perpetuating an outdated legacy when we do it to ourselves. And when more of us wake up to the fact and start to actually live it and model it to others, then we are contributing to a better world.
I have a client who [00:14:00] not only works three days, but encourages the people who work for her to work for three days. And now all her friends and colleagues are super interested in this whole three day work week thing. They're constantly asking her how she does it, and could she talk more about how it benefits her so they can wrap their minds around it too.
I love how contagious that is, and how privileged we are that we get to go first. And I love imagining how different our world would be if everyone worked three days. How much more fulfilled, how much kinder, more connected, and how much higher quality everything we produced would be too. Let's build that world, shall we?
So here's what I want you to take away from this. A three day workweek isn't just about working less, it's about working better, creating more from less, designing a business that truly supports you, and breaking free from the cycle of guilt or whatever else is driving you to do, do, do. [00:15:00] You don't have to wait for some day to build the life you actually want.
You can start shifting things now. Many entrepreneurs say they want freedom, but most aren't willing to make the bold decisions that create it. They keep adding more offers, more clients, and more hours. Then wonder why they feel trapped and over it. If you are past the point of telling yourself that next year you'll finally do things differently and you're ready to simplify your business, rewire your brain, and actually claim the freedom that you started this for, without guilt and without grinding, hit subscribe and bring a friend along for the ride.
Let's redefine success together. I'll talk to you again on Tuesday.
Thanks for joining us here at The Uncommon Way. If you want more tips and resources for developing clarity in your business and life, including the Clarity First strategy for growing and scaling your [00:16:00] business, visit theuncommonway. com. See you next time.
