Last week, I was on stage in Barcelona speaking to 200 entrepreneurs from EO Barcelona.
These are not beginners. These are founders running real companies, real teams, real payroll.
And I opened my talk with five words that made half the room deeply uncomfortable.
I said: “Quit working Fridays.”
Not next year.
Not when your company gets bigger.
Not when the economy stabilizes.
Now.
I told them the five-day work week was obsolete.
Then I asked everyone in the room to stand up and take an oath, an oath that they would never work Fridays again. About one-third of the room stood up.
The rest sat there staring at me like I had lost my mind.
But here’s the truth:
The era that makes this possible is already here, and it’s growing faster than almost anyone realizes.
The technologies just converged
The reason I’m confident about this is simple.
Over the past few months, something extraordinary happened in the world of AI. A cluster of technologies converged in a way that fundamentally changed what computers can do.
It started in February.
Openclaw launched. Claude Opus 4.6 came out in the same month. Then OpenAI released its new coding tool.
In February alone, every single programmer in the world had to radically change the way they think or risk becoming obsolete.
Because the result is something that should stop you in your tracks:
Anyone can now build software.
And once a founder can write their own software, the founder basically has a team of programmers ready to optimize their entire day.
I’ve been experimenting with this obsessively.
At first, I used AI to assist with simple tasks:
- Writing emails
- Brainstorming ideas
- Summarizing notes
Useful, but not revolutionary.
Then I started pushing further.
I began building my own systems.
I wrote software to optimize my daily task list. Software to help structure the writing of my next book. Software to manage and track my OKRs.
And as these systems started running, something very unusual began happening.
Work didn’t just get faster.
Work started dissolving.
Meetings disappeared.
Research that once took hours took minutes. Planning processes became automated.
The more I experimented, the more I realized something deeper.
We are entering an era where intelligence itself becomes abundant.
My AI digital twin
The latest software I’m developing is something I never imagined possible a few years ago.
I’m building an AI digital twin.
A system that thinks like me, writes like me, speaks like me, and can respond to emails with accuracy so high that most people cannot tell it isn’t me.
In other words: I’ve literally cloned myself.
And my clone now does the bulk of my work.
Now, I’ll admit I’m a little bit ahead of the curve here. I do have a degree in computer science.
But the technologies I’m seeing right now are going to be available to everyone soon. What used to require teams of engineers now requires curiosity and a willingness to experiment.
All you have to do is quit this bullshit rule that you need to work a five-day work week.
Trim it down to four.
The five-day work week is a b-rule
The five-day work week feels normal. But normal doesn’t mean natural. And it definitely doesn’t mean necessary.
The five-day work week is what I call a B-rule: a bullshit rule inherited from the industrial age.
It was designed for factories and assembly lines.
It was never designed for:
- Entrepreneurs
- Creative thinkers
- The age of artificial intelligence
Yet we carried it forward without questioning it.
Now AI is about to expose how outdated it really is.
Because when intelligence becomes abundant, human time becomes incredibly valuable.
The question shifts from:
“How do I work harder?”
“Why am I working so much at all?”
Here’s how you can structure your Fridays:
This is the experiment I proposed to those founders in Barcelona.
Do not work on Fridays.
Make it non-negotiable.
Instead, structure your Friday intentionally.
- 3 hours: Learning AI
Spend three hours experimenting with AI tools. You can learn this through Mindvalley’s Amplify with AI course, or even just searching YouTube videos. Within four Fridays, you will become so much more productive that you will never have to work a Friday for the rest of your life. Most people are just too stubborn to jump in, giving themselves all sorts of bullshit excuses like they’re not ready. - 3 hours: Physical Health
Every single person reading this newsletter who is under 65 will very likely live to be 100. This will be the subject of a future newsletter on the longevity revolution. We are about to hit what Peter Diamandis calls longevity escape velocity by 2030. For every year you live, you will gain an extra year. The vast majority of you reading this are going to live to be a hundred. And you’ll either go into your hundreds broken, or you’ll go into your hundreds with the same body you had in your 50s. So keep that body fine-tuned. - 2 hours: Friends and Family
Take those extra two hours on a Friday. Take someone out to dinner. Host a gathering. Human connection is the most powerful tool for happiness, for longevity, and for growth.
This is what is going to change your life if you commit to doing it immediately.
How to get started
There are three tools that I think we should all pay attention to.
It is not within the capacity of this newsletter to teach you these tools, but here is what I want you to do with your first six Fridays.
Fridays 1-2: Start playing with Claude
Claude is way more advanced than ChatGPT. It is one of the most exciting apps in the world right now. Start playing with it. Get familiar. Ask questions about your work, your ideas, your projects.
Fridays 3-4: Move to Claude Desktop
This is a version of Claude that sits on your computer. It actually has access to the files on your computer. Start with something simple: ask it to clean up your desktop. Then start asking it to tell you what else it can do. Share with it your thoughts, your dreams, your work week, the book you’re thinking about writing. Ask it how it can help. It will tell you. You’ll be surprised.
Fridays 5-6: Enter Claude Code
Now a month has elapsed. This is the tool that’s making engineers obsolete. And it’s going to shift your life. Claude Code operates in the terminal. It has no fancy interface. Remember the old MS-DOS computers we had to use in the 1980s before Windows? It’s just like that. But you launch Claude in it and talk to it. No need to learn any complex commands. Just ask it.
Six Fridays have elapsed. Your life is completely pivoted.
You’ve gained the power to dematerialize work. Your body is in the fittest state of being.
And your human connections are stronger than ever.
But what if you have a job?
Now you might be thinking:
“That’s easy for entrepreneurs to say. I have a job.”
Fair point. The rule I’m stating applies to people who are self-employed.
If you have a job, you probably have a contract with your boss that’s unique to you, and that’s something you have to fulfill.
But one of the things I believe you can do is speak to your boss or supervisor and ask if, within the confines of your work week, you could invest time in learning AI.
Many managers are going to easily allow you to take two to four hours a week to study AI if they understand that this is going to increase your productivity and allow you to contribute more to the company.
So in effect, your work week comes down to about four and a half days a week, with half a day dedicated to learning.
I’ve done this with many of my employees.
We create AI classes for them, and we encourage them to take time in their work week to go deep in AI.
I believe many founders who are aware of the revolution will let it happen as well.
The four-day work week is coming anyway
Whether individuals adopt it first or governments adopt it later, one thing is becoming clear.
The four-day work week is coming.
Even Elon Musk has said, “It’s not a question of IF, it’s a question of WHEN.”
And the reason is because by the end of 2026, so many jobs are going to become unnecessary that in many companies, people are basically going to have ridiculous amounts of free time while being paid for a 40-hour work week.
We might as well just agree to give everyone Friday off.
And when that moment arrives… Fridays will disappear.
Join the free your Friday movement
If the challenge above feels overwhelming, I created something specifically to help.
I’m going to teach you how to do it.
Join me for 12 hours at the Mindvalley AI Summit. It’s going to be structured.
This is not going to be a gallery of speakers. I’m going to take you through a clear 12-hour methodology to free your Fridays.
12 hours · March 20-22 · Completely free
Free Your Friday: Join the AI Summit
By the end of this summit, you will never have to work a Friday again.
But I need one thing from you.
Commitment.
Show up.
Pay attention.
Do not skip.
Experiment.
Because the people who move first in this new era will gain something incredibly rare: The Gift of Time.
The real promise of AI
The AI revolution is not about machines becoming smarter.
It’s about humans finally becoming free.
Free from busywork.
Free from outdated rules.
Free to spend more time creating, exploring, and connecting.
The five-day work week was a rule someone invented. And like most rules… It can be broken.
Your Fridays are waiting. Let’s make it happen.
With freedom,
Vishen
PS: I’d love to hear from you. Leave a comment here and tell me: Are you ready to quit Fridays? Or are you still holding on to the Brule?
38 Responses
hi there Vishen & Mindavalley Team, I’m checking about the reminder e-mails mentioning no replays/ no recording. On March 6th I paid USD49, for recordings of this training? Hope that stands!?
thank you
best
anne
As someone who has worked in the field of organization and productivity for more than two decades, I have long been an advocate for the concept of a four-day workweek.
When viewed through the lens of efficiency and productivity, the model makes a great deal of sense. Concentrated work periods often encourage greater focus, better prioritization, and a more intentional use of time. In many cases, people are able to accomplish the same amount—if not more—when their schedules are structured with greater purpose.
Equally important is the wellness component built into this approach. When individuals feel supported in maintaining a healthier balance between work and life, motivation naturally increases. People tend to show up more engaged, energized, and committed to the quality of their work.
When productivity and well-being are aligned in this way, the result is a powerful outcome—one that benefits both the individual and the organization. In many respects, it becomes a true win-win for everyone involved.
Vishen! The more you get familiar with Claude the more Claude is getting familiar with you! AI atuddies us faster than we study it! You create a digital “clone” of yourself and it works for you at first but what if the clone evolves on its own and starts doing things that would jeopersise your life, identity, persona in the system? Mind I am not criticising your thinking. I agree that in the perfect world it all makes sense and we all could live happily ever after in harmony with the technology but I have a feeling it is all leading to a distopian ending if we are too carefree and submit our will to the AI. Agenda 2030 is now more real than ever. I already work less and I used to dor far more money than avg.people thanks to your platform and the way of thinking but please leta be mindful about the possible consequences of becoming a slave to the new order.
I’m a childcare business owner and operator. I provide childcare, have great family relationships, mostly enjoy teaching early education. This is a dream for me to work a four day work week. All the planning , prep and shopping that I do and have for years outside of my work week is taking a toll on me. I’m the bones of this small business. There is a huge need, just not enough money to hire the best staff. So I take on most of the work. I need to work smarter not harder.
This is a really interesting and exciting idea. I can imagine it will work for many jobs where people don’t need immediate help. Just what about all the professions that are of direct service to people? There will still be medical emergencies, accidents, broken infrastructure and so on. Would you want to wait until Monday or travel far to the next doctor who still works fridays if your or your child are injured?
I would love to work 4 days a week only. I have been asking if its possible for the last 2 years. I was trying to convince them to give me 4 x 10hrs work. Still didn’t work out yet….
I retired early from traditional work to pursue passion work. Mindvalleys been key to me evolving this way. In my 60s I implemented my 3 year plan, experimented investing in real estate and will be starting my qi gong teaching certificate this year. In becoming a free lance solopreneur, I’m really keen on learning AI to be organised and have the mundane become easy with AI and have more time to love my life. I admit I’m a real beginner with tech, I’ve attend every Ai presentation with MV for a number of years and still find myself lost from the beginning of the session because I’m not ready. Am I alone in this? Would be so helpful if you can provide a prep email (what Ai you’ll be using, what Ai we should register with, can we do what you’re teaching with free account or need to buy, real basics… like a textbook or supply list before we attend first college class lol…) so we can be ready to get hands on with you during the session? So ready to action versus listening
Hello Vishen,
I absolutely love the idea of a 4-day workweek.
But how would that work for a beautician who provides hands-on treatments, owns her own business, and depends on in-person clients?
Should I start rethinking my profession?
My concern is that if more people have extra time off, they might spend it traveling, sightseeing, relaxing, or treating themselves to experiences — including hands-on treatments like the ones I offer, where will we get our 4 days off work?
Do you have any suggestions?
Maria Dias
I believe as well as you do in AI and work, workload and with that worktime reduction. And yes, 4 workdays are enough.
However, there is one concern i have…that’s the unbelieveble amount of energy AI will use to process all of the demand on it. I see in my surroundings enourmous parks with windmills over 200m high with all flashing redlights on everyone of them, and all that so called green energy is fed straight into…yes…new datacentres. So AI changes radically the ones so nice countryside into a giant windmill and sunpanel park as far as you can see, even on the sees. So, now we can spend our new free fridays and the existing saturdays and sundays in a more and more depressing environment.
Regards,
Hi
This is Santosh here from India . I am self employed and run an advisory firm in real estate industry. I am 57 years and have been hearing so much about AI. How’s do I start to learn about AI and apply it in my business.
Regards
I’m absolutely ready! Have been since birth however as a pharmacist I’m one of those who has learned how to utilize the computer programs for work but spent little time really understanding the computer world because any time off is spent outdoors skiing, being on the water, hunting/fishing, golfing, etc and most importantly teaching and sharing the outdoors with my beautiful daughters Jessie and Nikki. That worked, they love the outdoors so now it’s time for me to advance into the future and explore the world of infinite opportunities!
How does this all apply to medical doctors in a university hospital setting? I don’t see the 4 day-week coming here. Do you have a different view, Vishen?
Hi Vishen, very interesting article. This is something, as a union, that we are trying to tackle at the moment. We want a reduction in hours but at the same pay. Productivity is the first obstacle at every discussion. And sadly the company are letting go of people rather than re-training in AI or other areas of the business that is needed.
I’m interested in hearing your view on data centres and their need for water? This could potentially be a humongous problem in the very near future?
Vishen, loved your last line and the word “brule,” which can be extended to free your time and not “bruled.” Thanks for your insights and caring about the betterment of mankind.
James Neiswender
Hi Vishen, I’m a writer and editor and I’ve been working with ChatGPT and Claude since they were launched and I’ve seen the phenomenal progress and improvement over the years. My biggest concern has always been around privacy. Putting my original content or a client’s – even just sections of it into AI. You seem to allow AI access to much of your work, your files etc. As someone who has studied computer science how do you protect your content when working with AI?
I know a woman who works in a big tech company, and who had recently come back from maternity leave.
After about a week she noticed something strange: everyone else was way more productive than she was.
She was confused.
She started asking herself if her time off had such a deep effect on her, made her slow.
Then her boss came in. He had noticed she’s behind the rest of the team as well.
But he knew the reason. While she was away, AI kicked in.
He told her she needs to learn working with it too.
It was not a suggestion. He demanded it.
The trouble with those who are not self-employed, is that while productivity rises, so are the expectations of bosses. For these people, AI did not (yet?) create free time. It actually created a positive feedback loop to do more. Breaks got shorter. You could no longer finish a task, send it over to someone who asked for it, and wait hours or days until you get feedback. Now, those comments came only minutes later. Stress is on the rise.
I have a theory on where this is going, but I wonder, Vishen, what your take on it is.
I really love the idea of having Fridays off, and I’m grateful you mentioned that it’s easier for entrepreneurs. For someone like me, with a set contract with my employer, it’s a bit different. However, I think for those of us in a contracted role, we can still request a few hours to study AI or dedicate time to my master’s classes. My employer also provides time for physical education, so I can use those hours as well. For me, I’ve always been a serial entrepreneur. As my career takes me to different countries, I’ve started and passed on businesses, and my goal is to move fully into entrepreneurship in the future. That said, I’m with you—whether it’s Fridays or maybe even Wednesdays—I think it’s about finding balance. I’ll start with Wednesdays: work a few days, take that day off, and then enjoy the weekend. I’ve followed you for several years, and you have contributed so much to my growth. You truly motivate me. With so much love, admiration, and respect, Alejandra.
I have a lot of perspectives on this. From the perspective of reducing to 4 day work week and reducing stress for many, many people is amazing. I definitely agree with 4 day work week…but I have other perspectives and it feels like there is a gap starting to create here…
Hi Vishen,
I am very keen to attend the session. However, it’s difficult for me to attend the entire session live. I have dependants to take of. Request you to please share recording, which I can see in parts.
Thanks and Regards
Garima
Vishen you are a visionary. I do trust and love that about you! I have been stubborn and a bit afraid as I am a private person not needing for everyone to know what I eat or do. But I have to say you have made a breakthrough in my thoughts today! I’m feeling excited about all this!