Also, it helps to explain (if this is true) that you are available every day for part of the day and that you can be flexible about the arrangement. That is much easier for managers to deal with than 2 or 3 days per week and you unreachable on the others.
Also, don't listen to folks saying it can't be done who have never actually tried. I've been doing it for many years.
We've been a fully remote company since inception and put a ton of emphasize on providing every team member with what they need in terms of flexibility and work-life-balance.
We've written an extensive Company Handbook about who we are, how we work and what we do [2]. It's free to download.
We’re proud to say that our average employee stay is four years — more than double the average for our industry.
Freelancing is as full- or part-time as you want.
Although I've started with UpWork, I don't recommend it for job search anymore, because the quality of clients was low from my experience. A lot of job postings ended up being a race to the bottom with rates. I think WeWorkRemotely is a better option for search, while HN hiring threads are even better.
that's the one danger about the 4-day work week i'm not crazy about.
my guess is, if you had a relatively valuable skillset, say coding of some type that was reasonably in demand for, say, a contract rate in the US that would get you $65/hr or more on a W-2 basis, then you would be able to find some decent, possibly long-term work _if_ you were willing to put in the effort.
what's the effort? start pitching companies. find full-time listings and submit your resume, tell them what you're seeking (20 hours/wk, 4 hrs/day, $50/hr, employed normally, but just part-time instead of full time, presumably no bennies, etc.), and that's about it.
ping 10 companies a day from the "Who's hiring?" threads, and see what you get back, rinse, refine, repeat.
also, pay linkedin $30/mo and ping dev managers directly with your pitch.
and try to talk to an HR-type person at a startup to get the lowdown on what it would actually take to get hired part-time - it might end up being pretty simple, or not, but you'd be in a much better position if you knew, and might not take more than a simple message or phone call, or ask a friend of a friend who is in HR.