I didn’t have a name for it back then — there was no “life hack,” no plan, nothing clever.
But looking back, it was the first time I ever got a real taste of time freedom, years before I knew that was even a thing worth going after.
I was in my early twenties, freshly back in Sydney after backpacking Europe with my best mate.
Broke, jet-lagged, and needing a job yesterday.
I found one on Seek that paid $25 an hour.
My old job had paid $18 an hour but I’d quit that to go travelling (after crawling out of credit card debt).
Nothing unusual there – except this one was four days a week, not five.
I was nowhere near qualified for it. It was a procurement role at a huge company, and I’d been managing an office (which wasn’t even an official business – it was a dodgy dating agency, which is a story for another day).
It was genuinely ballsy to apply. I remember thinking I’d probably never get it, but I’d give it a crack anyway, because what did I have to lose?
I put everything into that application. And I got it – though I’ve always had a suspicion I wasn’t first pick.
I did well in the job. And I structured my week so I had Wednesdays off — Monday, Tuesday, day off, Thursday, Friday.
Wednesday wasn’t like a weekend day off, when everything’s busy and everyone’s out doing things. It was quiet, calm, low-key.
I’d wake up and the house would already be empty, all my flatmates and my partner had gone to work.
It was genuinely the most low-sensory, relaxing day of my week, and I’d recommend it to anyone.
Honestly, if I ever had the chance to work a four-day week again, I’d take the midweek day off over a Friday or Monday every.single.time.
I’d go to the State Library. Walk around the Botanic Gardens or Hyde Park. Wander around my home suburb of Bondi.
I just walked around doing exactly what I wanted, on a day when the rest of the world was somewhere else.
(One of the great gifts of my life is that I genuinely enjoy my own company – I don’t need to be with other people to enjoy myself.)
That lasted about a year, until they wanted me full-time which, to be fair, turned out to be a great career move and got me into the travel industry which was (and still is) my favourite industry to work in.
Coming from a relatively low-wage job, the realisation hit hard: same kind of day, a lot more money for it.
Though to be fair, it was also a harder role – more challenging, more growth, a genuine step up, not just a pay bump.
I didn’t know it at the time, but that was the first time I’d properly hacked my own life.
And the lesson, looking back, is simple: back yourself, even when you don’t think you’re qualified.
You’ve got literally nothing to lose and potentially everything to gain. Worst case, you don’t get it, and you’re exactly where you started.
It was also the first time I really understood that an hour is an hour, no matter how you spend it – so you may as well work out what yours is actually worth and get paid as much as you can for it.
That job was my first real taste of massively increasing my income just by changing the hourly rate, not the hours.
It’s the same instinct that, years later, turned into paying off debt, downsizing our house, and building a life around time freedom instead of stuff – doing the thing that feels counterintuitive, the opposite of what is comfortable, because the maths (or the gut feeling) tells you it’s worth it.
Back then I didn’t think of it as a system or a strategy or anything – it was just a really good situation I’d stumbled into but it was my first taste at having time freedom and I’ve never forgotten how much I adored my Wednesday’s off.
