I once had an informal talk about downshifting with my supervisor. She was incredulous that I would be willing to give up the $$ of full-time employment. Her suggestion was to try a compressed work schedule (4x10) and take off Fridays. I got a bit of wink-wink vibe like maybe she was suggesting that I wouldn't actually be expected to work full 10 hour days.
Good point, and this is something I've considered. However, I'm on a team of 3, and we had a 4th a few years ago who did this (3 days x 13hr, wink wink) for a year before just retiring at age 64, and the other two found it very annoying. I am the lead though, so I could certainly force it, but...I'd feel like a bit of an a-hole doing it. Actually, my thought was I could technically do that, but also ask for a salary reduction commiserate with a 40% reduction, so on paper I'd look full time, 39 hours, but in actuality I'd make only 60% of what the other 2 do... Thing is, one of the issues instigating these thoughts, other than just wanting some of my time back, was that things were slowing down. But now I'm told that a bunch of work acquired through an acquisition a year ago may suddenly become ours (requiring us to maybe double staff), so this may all be moot for me for a while until things settle!