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Yeah, too many people (managers and businesses included) think working is looking busy.
You could just as easily be sitting on your sofa at home with some music on and working, if you're actively considering a problem.
In fact in marketing agencies I worked at it wasn't uncommon to just sit and chill out and come back with come new creative solutions.
I quite often lay on my bed with my eyes closed. No, I’m not napping, I’m visualising how to make something. I heard a Michelangelo quote that goes something like “finding the angel (in the marble) is the hard part, setting her free is easy”.. because he would stare at the marble blocks for days before starting carving. Thinking is definitely working!
If I could claim TOIL for every work-related dream or nightmare that I've had over the years, I'd never be in work! I mentioned the idea to my manager a couple of years back and she laughed me out of the office. If you find a way, can you let me know please?
I think we vastly overestimate how long human brains can intensely focus in a day. I used to get this with revising. Five good quality hours done in sections was my absolute limit. People sitting in the library revising for 10-12 hours were not actually doing that no matter how much they were kidding themselves imho. I could see half the time that they would actually be sat on social media. I could up my work hours doing stuff like proofreading, editing, making revision materials etc, but actually switched on focusing was much less. Edit: clarity.
On a usual day, I do 100% for the first hour just because I want to get on top of emails and clear all the little tasks to prevent them stacking up. After that, then it's maybe 60% for the rest of the day, so long as everything that needs to be done, gets done.
100% again at various intervals depending on if a piece of urgent/last minute work gets dropped on my desk
I don't think anyone except probably frontline NHS staff and teachers actually work 100% all day. *Ps. That's not an invitation for everyone to tell me how hard they work*
Most people, assuming their workplace is staffed properly shouldn't have to be at 100% all day. You'd burn out, and generally hard work is rewarded with more work so the incentive isn't there.
> and generally hard work is rewarded with more work so the incentive isn't there.
Yeah, hard work in my personal experience always leads to more work **and** less credit for that same work in the future, it’s basically diminishing returns until you hit the point where giving 110% is seen as slacking.
Yup, and it can work against you when you're seeking a promotion.
If you already go above and beyond what's expected of you, it'd be incredibly hard for an employer to fill your role with someone who works at the same level.
I always think it's good practice to get the work done, be available to take on additional ad-hoc tasks when asked so that you appear helpful/a team player, but also under promise and over deliver. Tell them a job will take a 2 days and then drop it in at the end of day 1.
On Saturday night I did a 12.5 hour hospital shift, I took no break and used the toilet once, the rest of time I was working constantly as fast as I could.
5 minutes of that was spent listening a a teenage boy moaning about how no one else seemed to know what they were f**king doing while I was trying to convince him and his partner not to end up with a dead kid. I was still getting his partner ready for theatre while I listened, don’t waste a second you don’t have.
On night shifts when there are quiet moments, I fill them with mandatory training, audit and student teaching.
Fair play to you. Honestly, I don't know how you people battle on in those roles. Especially given the pay.
I simply don't have the drive or compassion I guess to flog myself at 100% all day everyday.
Thats the NHS for you. Tbf I've had to cut down to short shifts ( due to health problem) but when I'm supposed to start at 6, I'm ready & set to go by 6 ( not arrived get thing ready etc) I don't stop one after the other until shift time is up. When I read about what people in offices & other work places do ....... Gotta admit I think I chose the wrong profession. My friend ( theatre sister for many years) always said all us lot will have kidney/ bladder issues in the future, 1 piss in 12/13/14 hrs day in day out ain't good
I work in a busy emergency department and used to have a similar experience to what you describe.
Please look after yourself better. There is time to go toilet. There is time to take a drink, it's not your fault it's hectic and understaffed. If you find yourself not able or willing to stand up to your seniors who say you can't, then make sure you repeatedly use those sick days to recover. Eventually you'll be pulled in for monitoring, and asked what can your employer do to help...the answer is enforcing breaks.
You are replaceable. Your health isn't
you sound like my wife with her stories (shes a midwife working for the NHS doing the same shifts as you!). I look like i do sod all compared to you as a WFH software engineer.
I’m a teacher in a secondary school. I’d say I’m at 100% in lessons to practically 10% in my PPA (“free”) time. I just cannot plan lessons effectively in my free time at work. So then I end up doing work at home… more fool me I guess!
>I don't think anyone except probably frontline NHS staff and teachers actually work 100% all day.
I can hear the caring, retail and hospitality sectors screaming at you right now!!!!
Eh I'm BOH and pretty much always on the go.
Less down time at my new place as we feed about 300-500 people a day. It's alot of prep but I don't feel stressed or rushed. I just putter along
Exactly the same as this, assuming we’re fully staffed on the day. My main bits of work are always the first and last hour of the shift. I have days when my motivation is high so I’ll just blitz things all day and pick up miscellaneous tasks, but other days I just coast after the first hour.
I’d say on certain days I can very easily go at least an hour without actually doing anything, but I like to fill those gaps with small useful stuff that contributes.
Just to buck the prevailing attitude on reddit that seems to be "I get loads more done at home," I'd *love* for that to be true because it would justify working from home more, which I prefer.
But I honestly do pretty much fuck all at home.
I hate coming in to the office but at least I actually do some stuff there.
Pretty much all the studies done have found wfh is less productive. I love wfh from a personal perspective but it's hard to believe the general reddit attitude that everyone's 10x more productive at home fully matches up with reality. I'm just not convinced that it's how human behaviour works.
Pretty much every independent article Ive read shows the opposite: WFH is more productive than in an office. The only study Ive seen that showed the opposite was from a small sample in a specific sector and was paid for my a publisher that had links to the London property market… hardly trustworthy!
I’m firmly in the camp of whatever works best for you as an individual. If you are more productive and prefer being in an office more, then you should definitely do that. Alternatively if you’re more productive at home, then definitely do that. I get a lot more done from home than the occasional trip into the office. In fact I’m only on Reddit now as I’m in the office. 3 more hours to go…
For me, three reasons:
That slight boss syndrome where "they think I'm not working hard from home, so I will work extra hard" (that's my personal psychology though)
Less distractions, very easy to lose time at the office in chit-chat (although I can miss it)
Slightly more relaxed and balanced life - choreslike washing / cooking / cleaning etc can get 10 minutes every 2 hours, rather than build up.
And the hour I save commuting often (but not always) goes into extra work.
It's hard to be subjective about things, but I'd say 50% more productive, and 100% prefer it.
I think there are too many variables to generalise. Some people might have lots of interruptions in their office so they can't get the 'heads down' stuff done, but others might give themselves some time off during the workday to do other things when WFH. Personally, I think if I'm on deadline I probably get more done at home because of fewer interruptions, but if it's a quiet time of the year I'd be more productive in the office because if I'm at home and it's quiet I'm likely coasting.
So the main article i read a while ago was (i think) this one: https://wfhresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/SIEPR1.pdf. It references quite a few studies which support the point.
I suspect my memory was mainly coloured by tons of news articles more than actual research though. So i think i'd have to retract my earlier statement of "most research", as I can't really find a whole lot else supporting the point (or, to be fair, refuting it).
Googling it is a bit of a nightmare, it seems you can find an article to support whatever point of view you want, most of them just news articles referencing news articles. And if you do manage to track down sources, many are just surveys, which are kind of unhelpful at the best of times, let alone with something so prone to bias either way.
Ultimately i have no idea whether WFH is actually more productive, and it probably depends on so many different factors that its silly to make blanket statements either way. Regardless, i fucking love working from home because work productivity is just about near the bottom of my personal priorities, so for me the point is moot.
I think competent people are more productive at home.
Purely anecdotal of course, but has been my experience that those who need to 'feel the buzz' of the office are generally less competent
I only know me, if I wfh I get loads done, I don't have to deal with the relentless procession of people wanting some inane thing that gets in the way but somehow becomes the priority
Is that true though? It didn’t take me long to find this https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274728 and this https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10072379/ which both suggest neutral or positive productivity changes from working from home. In my very quick scan I didn’t find any literature suggesting a wholly negative impact.
For me, going in means spending 20 minutes finding somewhere to sit, then you find a desk but there’s no mouse or one of the screens doesn’t work. Then you go make tea and chat to multiple people in the kitchen. Go back to the desk and someone walks past who wants to chat as they haven’t seen you in a while. Then you have to move because someone’s booked the office you’re sitting in. Then it’s lunch. Then just repeat the morning. At home, my desk is my desk. No one’s stolen the mouse. No one can book my desk. No one is chatting to me while I make tea. No one walks past me and wants to waffle about shit I don’t care about. Come 4.55pm in the office, I’m walking out the door because of traffic. At home… 5.45pm and I’m still working.
For me it really depends what I'm doing. If I have a task to focus on I work as well at home as I do in the office. If I have a day with very little actual work to do, I'm more productive in the office because I'll force myself to find something. Whether that's training or filing. If I'm at home with little actual work to do, I'll end up cleaning or scrolling or reading.
My issue is I get the same amount of work done at home as I do in the office except once I'm done with my work at the office, I can't go sit on my arsenal watching TV for 4 hours. I have to appear busy.
I’m more productive at home. I find the office noisy and distracting.
I guess it depends what kind of personality you have and what kind of work you do.
Agreed. Get significantly more done whilst I'm WFH.
At the office I get pulled into meetings / conversations / shitty Internet / finding rooms for privacy to make calls / heading out to find lunch etc.
Working from home is much more efficient for me. Going into the office is nice to see colleagues and chat but I usually spend the following days catching up.
Same for me. At home I put on some music and work away all day. I even eat at my desk while I watch a video and reply to stuff.
At the office I get pulled into a conversation every 15-20 minutes about something stupid and always go out for a long lunch.
I know, it baffles me. They’re the ones that complain about lack of talent too, ignoring the fact people want flexibility now. Not sitting in some soulless office waiting for 5pm
I’m literally the opposite of this. When I’m in the office I get loads done because I don’t have distractions and kind of have to work because my boss is right there. At home I end up getting distracted and have far too much freedom to just procrastinate and like, idk, stare at a bug on the window.
I'm a primary school teacher. Literally from the moment I arrive to when I leave, I work. It's the only way to get everything done.
Edit - Everything is shorthand for everything that can't wait: important paperwork, stupid crap your 'leaders' (managers) ask for, lesson and resource preparation, tidying the classroom, trip planning, safeguarding etc., etc.,
I'm in at 7.30 and try to leave by 5. But I'll usually have one or two things to do at home. It's just... a lot.
Research shows that people are generally only productive about 2-3 hours a day, and that figure can be the same while working from home, but the quality of WFH work can be much higher. We also tend to rate our own productivity time much higher when asked how productive we are.
I used to go to work, now I WFH. When in work, you'll find a lot of people are trying to appear productive, but aren't actually doing anything. NO ONE can be going flat-out all day, that's just not how the human brain works, unless it's something you're highly interested in doing. You're also just as productive in a 6 hour day as an 8 hour day, so I'm a big advocate for that, and the 4 day work week. Also, what one person can achieve in an hour will be different to another person.
People are also more productive a certain times of the day than others, like I pretty much get all my work done in the first or last two hours of the day, purely depending on how well I slept. I also stick to "work smarter, not harder" and I do the minimum amount of effort to get the maximum output. I did a PhD, I've done my time of working myself to absolute death for nothing.
As long as you get your work done, I don't think it really matters how productive you are in a day, and there's no point comparing yourself to others because we all work differently.
It’s just different kinds of work. I’d agree when it comes to physical work and most things that are ‘hands on’. IMO responsibility is a form of work, and that’s what tends to increase as you progress.
Yeah, I used to be physically exhausted after a Sunday lunch shift washing dishes when I was 14 and earning £2 an hour.
The absolute most damage I could have done to the business would have been a couple of grand for a new dishwasher but really it was a couple of quid for the odd dropped plate here and there.
My current job I an sit on my arse all day mostly chatting to colleagues but a few crazy clicks could cost the company 10s of millions.
Coming from an office environment, I 100% agree. I worked my way up from call centre staff, to working on a technical project, to a data analyst. Each time my salary went up and my workload/stress levels went way down. I also have way better benefits when it comes to annual leave and flexible working.
It's all a scam, people.
I work in an industry where I see people at the top of it and I absolutely don't want their job. They work their fucking asses off. No thank you. I don't want a contract that states I have to be available by phone 24/7 and you can interrupt my annual leave with a four hour call.
Yep
Ask any factory worker, warehouse worker etc...
Minimum wage, constant shit jobs every day, no work benefits, shit annual leave (20 days PLUS bank holidays)
Sort of true in terms of actually producing things but you’re expected to take on additional responsibility/accountability. I’ve found things to get disproportionately more stressful as I’ve progressed.
If you include the overtime in the stats 110%, if you deduct time spent trying to navigate stupid outdated systems (such as IT/phone numbers that don’t work etc) 70%
Sorry was sleeping (I’m working nights).
Truth is:
Depends on speciality. For example a less-than-consultant grade doctor doing medical or surgical ward cover can go 12 hours forgetting to even drink water or wee. So 100%+.
On the other end of the spectrum are specialities like ITU where they might go some time not giving 100% (and being able to actually sit down for a coffee) but then when called upon must spring to action giving 100%+ performing what seems like magic to non-intensivists to swoop in like Superman/woman and save someone’s life.
A large proportion are GPs who usually work 100%+. 10 minute appointments back to back all morning. Lunch time which includes all the admin/home visits and little time for actual lunch. Then return to back to back appointments. Day length is from around 8am to 6/7pm. Most GPs do 8 sessions a work at most which is 4 full 10 hour+ days because more than that would burn out the hardiest of people. If the GP is running the duty list then they are working at ridiculous capacity sometimes being allocated less than 5 minutes to sort out complex issues.
On average most fall into the 100%+ category though there are of course some specialities that have it a lot better than others. I have some experience in medicine, surgery, A&E, GP, psychiatry, ITU and anaesthetics so can’t speak for all sub specialities. Additionally, there will always be lazy people in every walk of life and medicine isn’t exempt. Sometimes you come across people that work at 50% capacity all the time meaning the rest of their colleagues have to work harder to pick up the slack.
Only 110%? I used to get to work at 7.30, prep everything, then teach for 5+ hours, and do photocopying and other prep during break and lunch time. Then leave work around 4, drive home and have tea and relax. Then from about 6.30pm-8.30pm or sometimes even as late as 10pm, I'd be planning or marking. Then I'd do the same the next day. I'd spend at least 5 hours marking or planning over the weekend too. Half term, Christmas and Easter I'd find myself thinking, "Great, a week where I can catch up on my planning / marking!" I think during my first year, I worked for 60 hours a week and was paid for 37 hours.
After the first couple of years, it got easier re:planning, but not re:marking. I don't miss the relentlessness of it.
You absolutely should not be working 100% all, or even most, of the time.
That leads to burnout and a whole host of mental and physical issues. (See the current state of front-line NHS, for example)
Honestly, I keep myself busy, but it's very, very rare that I'm actually laser focused and devoting the full 100%. That's for times of disaster (IT, so disaster means a major service failing for a large number of users)
And I enjoy my job. Although if I had the money to not work, I'm not saying I would stay at it...
I entirely agree, but unfortunately employers don't seem to see it this way.
I work for a Great British brand, which like so many others is now owned wholly by overseas investment companies. On an almost weekly basis now I see changes to processes designed to cut costs and squeeze that last drop from the workforce and the customer. More and more aspects of the job are measured.
In the last few months there has been a handful of instances of guys in their 20s and 30s ending up in hospital with heart attack like symptoms, which have mostly been put down to stress.
Quite a contrast from 20 years ago when your manager would take you out to lunch on your birthday, or your wife would receive flowers when it was hers ... Capitalism has a lot to answer for.
And the funny thing is, if someone ran their car engine at the redline every time they used it, everyone would tell them they're an idiot and will wreck their car really quickly.
We understand that machinery doesn't handle 100% constantly without severe degradation, but so many places think that human beings - who are a hell of a lot more complex physically - should be able to manage it.
Not to mention the fact that machines don't have minds that sometimes try their best to break the physical parts...
Completely.
We even had a speech from a regional manager recently about how stress was actually good for you, and if you had no stress in your job it wouldn't be fulfilling etc... clearly it had been carefully crafted from higher up the chain and rolled down the company.
Even worse is that they're constantly ticking boxes to exonerate themselves of blame when it goes wrong by appointing "mental health first aiders" and the like. No, just stop piling on the pressure and we'll be just fine.
I'm supposed to work 7 hours per day, 35 hours per week.
Actual time spent working is less than that usually. Most days it's 4 or 5 hours at most, and some days it might only be 1 or 2 hours actually working.
This is my experience too. I really want to drop to 30hrs per week and I would definitely still be able to get all my work done in that time but I’d have to take a pro-rata pay cut, it’s madness really.
Before I left, teaching - 730 till about 5 or 6pm. Sometimes we had meetings later than that or night school classes till 8 or 9pm. Different league all together than normal office work. You can’t just coast midday for an hour or two or piss about answering emails. That’s why so many quit. You are always ‘on’.
It’s why I quit. Hated having to plan lessons, write emails to parents, and mark work until 7pm most days. I usually only got 1 day off a week. Teachers are loaded with more and more responsibilities and the behaviour of kids are just getting worse each year from my experience. In my last year of work, I had to print the majority of my worksheets at home. It was exhausting.
Nobody in in office does 100%. I’m a solicitor and so I track every 6 minutes of my day with software. In an average 7 hour day, it can often be difficult to deliver 5 hours of output, by the time you factor in all the downtime between tasks, non-meetings, waiting for calls, toilet breaks, coffee etc.
It will be the same for most professional services.
I can’t speak for other sectors but I expect there’s a wide spread. Some will be working flat out, and some will have a lot of downtime.
I'd say I keep an even 80% most days. Some days it's less, other days it's more. A couple of months back, I had full on 100% days for two weeks. It was exhausting and absolutly not possible to maintain that level all of the time - but every now and ten, when thre are issues, you do have to properly pull your finger out and go for it.
I'm self employed so not sure it counts - but I work 3 to 4 days a week. I get in at 9 but just kinda chill till 10 with maybe a couple of emails. Then client facing for 2-3 hours, then chill for an hour with admin if there is any, then home.
I work at a big accountancy firm (I’m not an accountant though) where we are expected to complete a timesheet on a daily basis and therefore give 100% each day. We can’t make things up or charge more time than we work since these timesheet reports are reviewed regularly. It’s having a pretty bad impact on my mental health.
Reading this thread and realizing again not all jobs are like this makes me even more depressed. I can’t easily get another job either as I’m on a work visa and not many companies are willing to sponsor for this role. Fml I guess
Is there not an unwritten rule where you are that you always fill in the timesheet for 8 hours a day? It’s what I have seen in every professional services firm I have worked at or with.
Depends on how you define “working” also depends what particular role I’m doing at any given time.
Say I’ve been asked to stand on a locus(scene guard) for ten hours you could argue that by literally just standing their doing as I was asked for said hours I have worked 100% of the time, normally the relief arrives late so you could argue I’m actually giving more than 100%.
My current role is much more about watching and waiting certain people and it requires constant focus. However there’s also office time that generally consists of me procrastinating or getting right into the minutia of something that isn’t actually important to the bigger picture.
So overall I’d say being generous to myself maybe 75%.
WfH.. but the 2 hours I spend in the bath is working as I'm thinking about the problem which means when I come to implement it , it takes 5 hours not 10.
Same, but I go for what I call "mental health walks". They last two hours and while listening to podcasts I think about a problem I need to solve. Over the last four years I've solved more problems this way than I would've if I sat in the office staring at my monitor.
When I was working in an agency I was full on - 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a week. Just churning it out with little time to think.
Now I work for myself, and with nigh on 30 years experience under my belt I can knock up work a lot quicker, and find solutions in minutes rather than days which gives me more time to think, and more time away from my mac.
I'm still always on duty, but if you compare how I work now to how I worked as a junior you'd probably call me lazy, even though my productivity is infinitely more than back then.
When I was in an office every day I mastered the art of looking busy. In reality I was teaching myself stuff and making lists in spreadsheets half the day. I quickly realised if I worked for all 7 and a half hours my productivity was double anyone else's so they must have been doing the same as me.
I'm a teacher. I work constantly, without stopping, always thinking, for my entire work day. And then I full on crash and burn and am absolutely useless in the evenings and over the weekends. Then I have a week off and just as I get back to normal functioning power I start all over again 😂
I think anyone who fucks around with a computer (like me) is very rarely over 50% productive. I can point to weeks without much work but never weeks straight of full on crunch.
Also the idea that WFH is more productive is a fantasy. I am almost fully remote and the latitude to just do fuck all with no oversight is massive.
Teachers obviously get a lot of holiday but are 100% always on whilst at work. Emergency services I imagine there is waiting around but preparedness is part of the job. Frontline NHS staff, bar staff in clubs, fast food workers are also broadly run off their feet.
When I’m in the office it’s 100% and it makes the day go by so fast. But mostly when wfh I’m probably around 65% as the pressure to perform is no longer there. Overall, I think I’m better off in the office when it comes to more crucial tasks. If there’s mundane, repetitive stuff then I’ll stay home.
Really depends on my motivation levels. Could be as high as 90% and as low as 5%.
Last week, for instance, I had no motivation and no one in my team was in due to half term so I did fuck all.
I think that’s only natural, I cannot be 100% otherwise I d burnt out.
Define working. I'm in IT Support (but the sort of place where the helpdesk is also infrastructure etc). While I do have plenty of projects a good chunk of my job is reactive not proactive so I'm sometimes sat with not much to do. If I'm not working on a project or doing cert training I might just be reading the news or shooting shit with someone. I'd say about 70% of my day is actual work of some kind and the rest is less active time.
At the office probably 5h, with very little time for intense focus, which makes my work pretty slow.
Working from home I’d say 5h of intense focus, 2h of emails / meetings / admin tasks, 1h of trying to find motivation / doing simple things until I get in the zone.
At the office there’s always someone looking to chat or go for tea breaks. There is a lot of noise since it’s open space, and it’s difficult to work uninterrupted. At home, it takes 2min to make tea and I drink it while working, no-one breaks my focus when I’m in the zone, and I don’t get distracted by my colleagues’ problems (they really try to fix it themselves before calling to me for help). I have to set up timers to remember about breaks (because I still think better after a break), but they’re a lot shorter than at the office.
I tend to work properly from 8:30 to 1:30pm (half an hour lunch in that time) then from there to the end of the day my work turns sluggish. I do it from time to time but tend to spend more time on my phone or searching things.
Way less than 50% of my time is spent on actual work. However, I am here and available to support or solve any problems when they arise, which is basically my main requirement anyway.
On paper, 37 hours a week. In practice, somewhere between 50-80. My free time is not enjoyable, my weekends are marred by knowing what I have to go back to on Monday. Most weekends are spent working just to lessen the blow of the week to come. I am miserable.
I used to work in a council call center. In between calls we were expected to work in between constantly. Wether this was approving blue badges, refusing them, answering emails. [REMOVED], safeguarding alerts from care homes, ambulance logs... It was constant busy work, and all screens faced the supervisors or you were in the direct eyeline if you were in the office.
EDIT: removed a part of the post due to accidentally revealing which council I worked for.
I work out in the field, driving to different homes/businesses all day, if I don't get the work done quickly when I'm at site I'll push out at the end of the day so I work pretty hard.
Technically driving between sites is working, and I am getting paid for it, but I've got music or an audiobook on and am having a chill drive. I enjoy driving so I consider this part of my work day pretty relaxing.
I’ve done some work in resource planning for call centre/admin type jobs & when calculating staff costs & FTE the company used anything from 55% to 75% when calculating efficiency.
So anyone working 8 paid hours a day was only productively “working” on task for between 55-75% of that 8 hours.
Perception is key, working and looking like you are working are 2 different things. Guy in our office just happened to respond to a text coincidentally every time the IT director walked back from the toilets or kitchen, after about 4 of these across 3 days I was asked to “have a word” about being on his phone all the time. Ironically one of the hardest working in the team and it subtracted maybe 2 minutes from his workday while the smoking crew tossed it off in the car park 5x a day for 10 minutes at a time….
So we had the chat about perception and I told him to carry on doing the fantastic job he was doing as if nothing had changed. I “could” look like I had done a solid 9 hours work while delivering maybe 30 minutes if I were so inclined but I wouldn’t be doing myself any favours for playing catch up tomorrow if I did. I spend about 8 hours actually working 5 days a week and there’s always more than enough to fill an extra week after that (IT manager of sorts)
Just took a reduction in my hours through choice as I was wasting it procrastinating. I now work 30 hours a week. It couldn't be better, all with the same pay
I don't trust anyone who's at over 75%. The human brain needs downtime to be able to work at its best. If someone has been flat out at 100% all week I wouldn't expect their Friday report to make much sense.
I block out about 60% my calendar for routine jobs, project work and support tickets (I'm an IT head). Everything else is considered time to used at my discretion - ad-hoc meetings, admin catch up or just browsing Reddit to give my brain a rest.
When I worked for a charity for 5 years (marketing), I worked 99% of the time that I was there (16h a week). I didn't gossip, leave early or look at Facebook. I couldn't have kept up the same focus if it had been full time however, though if it had been a customer-facing job rather than desk based, perhaps I could. Computer work should in my view be legally restricted to only a few hours a day (or do 2h on, 1h off), for the sake of people's mental well-being.
In my old position, maybe 30 minutes - 2 hours a day depending on the time of the month. Current position pretty much working non stop from the moment I start with the occasional 5 minute toilet/drink break
Depends a lot on the project. Job I'm on (thankfully got off-hired from today) you've a job to make up even a few hours of trying to look busy, other jobs you can have a 12.5hr shift and be hell for leather for at least 11.5hrs
When I have worked in front of house in restaurants it was regularly 100%. Every spare moment is used to clean, check stock, etc.
Similarly in retail (I guess this depends on the definition of work) I had to be on my feet for the entire shift, couldn’t sit down, couldn’t have a phone on shop floor, and had to fold clothes if I wasn’t helping customers.
Both were physically tiring but I had minimal responsibilities, could leave my work behind when I finished my shift, and didn’t cause stress.
So I'm a teacher and academic support. I teach adults.
My day should start at 8, but I'm in before that. Check email, print worksheets. Class starts at 8:15. Lasts 90 mins, 15 mins break which is usually spent marking homework, but I might be able to make a cup of tea. Then teaching for 90 mins, another 15 mins break where I check materials for the next class. Luckily, I'm teaching the same class I've taught before but I'd have more prep to do if I had to make it new. After that, I get my lunch break. Should be an hour, but often 30 -45 mins.
In the afternoons, I might have student queries, clubs to run, materials to make, progress tests to invigilate, progress tests to grade, monthly reports to generate and send to class teachers, also got to chase said teachers for reports, before sending them on. For the clubs, I have to make the timetable and posters as well as materials.
I should finish work at 4:30. I usually leave about 5pm. Which isn't bad, but it would be later if I took my full break.
So I spend about 6 hours actually working. Maybe more.
I’m working about 80% of the time between 9-5. That missing 20% is taken with making drinks, snacks, lunch breaks, obeying the demands of my cat, comfort breaks, discussing with my husband what’s on the menu for dinner that evening….
Im most productive probably the last hour of that whole day. The rest of the time is meetings, emails, teams messages, calls etc. I rarely get any actual work of my own done (with an output to show) until the end of the day. I can thank my ADHD for that little treat for me.
I'm at work from 8am - 5pm Mon - Fri.
The following sections of time are complete write-offs, guaranteed;
Monday - All day
Tuesday - 8am - 10am, 3:15 pm - 5pm
Wednesday - 8am - 10am, 3:15 pm - 5pm
Thursday - 8am - 10am, 3:15 pm - 5pm
Friday - All day
That leaves 10am - 3pm, Tuesday to Thursday, with an hour for lunch each day during that time, so around 12 hours a week or so.
If my boss has the ability to monitor my internet, this is all tongue in cheek, and a coincidence that I'm on Reddit during one of those times I've designated as a write-off...
I have a skill job so when I’m required it’s 110% giving it everything. The other 7-10 hours of the day is loitering waiting to maybe be required again
I'm a junior doctor. I've worked jobs with more downtime but my current one is very busy
In a 9 hour shift I'd have 20 minutes break for eating lunch, probably a total of 20 minutes chatting with people spread out across the whole day and then a few toilet breaks. The rest of the time I'm very much working and I'll usually leave somewhere between 10 to 30 minutes late (and occasionally much much more than that)
A few hours a day when I WFH. I’m diagnosed ADD and suffer hugely with executive dysfunction.
I get myself into the office a couple of times a week where a lack of anything else to do means I can work with minimal interruption (save for lunch) for 7 odd hours.
I mainly wfh, in the office once or twice a month or so.
At home I’m probably working 80% of the time, hard. I work in data analysis so it’s good to have an environment with minimal distractions.
In the office I’m being asked to sort some excel or bi report problem out for someone, or help fix a formula in VBA. Or help someone out with some menial IT crap, for example last week a customer service guy had plugged his laptop into the dock and was frustrated as to why the screens were duplicated and not having multiple displays…
I don’t mind being in an office for meetings etc if required, but I spend 80% of my time in the office being distracted, at home I’m much more efficient and relaxed, but that’s just my introverted arse.
programmer.
am I working if, for example, I am compiling millions of lines of code at 400000 lines per second while at the same time responding to a reddit post?
Well, it’s a retail job so it’s hard to judge. Generally there’s always something you can find to do, but if you’re the only one manning the till, then you can’t leave it unattended to go and tidy the shop floor, so when there’s no customers you are often just standing there, thinking to yourself. I’m probably actually working in some capacity or another for 80-90% of the shift.
I don't think there is an easy answer to this one.
Give me the right job and I can be pulled right into it for a very long day. To the point were I resent stopping to eat lunch. Then on the other hand when you ask me to produce pretty customer documentation I struggle to maintain focus for even half a day.
If really depends on who you are and what you are working on. I also found I don't have the same stamina for intense dev work I did in my 20's or 30's. But I also now see more value in the meetings I initially thought were a waste of time :-)
I'm utterly bored and demotivated so do bare minimum on Mondays and Fridays to keep the wheels spinning, then focus on meetings and deliverables Tuesday to Wednesday.
I'd say no more than 15 hours a week.
In my defence, I would add that I'm vastly experienced and productive and get stuff done much faster and efficiently than most people in my role, and I get away with it because I save my clients relatively large sums of money.
Depends on the day, if I've got projects to get on with and useful meetings I can work intensely for half the day and spend the other half autopiloting smaller tasks, doing meetings, or taking quick coffee breaks.
Unfortunately my job is dependent on senior management giving things the go-ahead and there's a culture of talking a lot and not saying anything, so on a typical day I spend time faffing around with admin and in a meeting that could've been an email, while a lot of the serious work I could get on with is stuck higher up thr food chain.
It’s so variable. Sometimes I’ll do 8 hours where I literally do not stop, don’t check my personal phone at all and barely manage lunch. Most of the time probably 3 hours max but I do a lot of driving.
In a call centre the best case scenario you can plan for is about 72% of the time you're paying for will be worked once you look across the month and factor in sickness, annual leave, team meetings, coaching time, company training, 1:1 meetings with your manager, breaks and 5% fudge time for loo breaks and stuff. This goes down further if you add long term sickness, maternity, paternity, fire drills and the like.
I'm offering this as an example for a benchmark as call centres general have the infrasture in place to capture the exact times of people working: log in, log out, not available to take a call etc.
Meetings take up the vast majority of my day - Sometimes up to 5 hours of meetings that, for the most part, are completely avoidable.
On meeting free days, I could mop up what I need to do in around 2 hours?
There are definitely some days where I've been actively working 100% of the time (or close to). I don't enjoy these days though because I'm not working that hard out of choice, it's because I'm up against it with deadlines etc.
If I don't have imminent deadlines to stress about, then probably 5-6 hours a day I'm actively working. I'm definitely less motivated to work hard now than I was pre-pandemic, for reasons I'm sure would resonate with many of you
9 hour day, about 2.5hrs, little less on a Thursday.
I don’t think I’ve worked throughout an entire shift in my life tbh.
Hospitality, Amazon, DPD, DHL, Heathrow, and now various accountancy practices. None of them have been a solid 8/9 hours work.
When planning my teams work I have always worked on 5 productive hours. When I schedule more than that things get delayed. I don't tell the team that they are expected to only work 5 hours a day!
But not everything can be measured. A quick question while making a coffee may be more productive than an email chain.
Personally when running a business I worked long days and would get 8+ hours of productive time.
I've just been to work for two full days and watched movies lol, in a carer for teenagers they don't get out of bed till 5 lol pretty boring at times but the shifts are awesome 2 on 4 off
All said and done, about 3 hours, which is an improvement for me. I my years of working in IT I don't think I've ever worked solidly for the whole day.
At an old job we had work timesheets - basically you wrote everything down as you did it. Pathetic waste of energy.
Editing pdf - 7 minutes
Phone call - 3 minutes
Create logo - 41 minutes
etc
I knew one guy who would sit down at 9am and just write "Dealing with Emails - 3 hours" because that was half our workload.
Oh and we were advised not to include all the pointless meetings that were called at zero notice ...
But to answer the original question, it was probably 3 hours. I think it was done to make us feel guilty at the end of the day and be more productive.
On a quiet day maybe 1 hour of productive work and 2 hours of calls. Can be less.
On a busy day this would be more like 4 hours of productive work and 6 hours of calls.
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Actively working hard, probably 3 hours. The rest of the time I'm either thinking about a problem or just doing what I can on autopilot.
Thinking about a problem IS working.
I agree this is still working!
I WFH and often solve problems by going for a quiet lie down on my bed.
I do this as well
I also lie on their bed, never seen you there though
Yeah, too many people (managers and businesses included) think working is looking busy. You could just as easily be sitting on your sofa at home with some music on and working, if you're actively considering a problem. In fact in marketing agencies I worked at it wasn't uncommon to just sit and chill out and come back with come new creative solutions.
Marketing is one big joke, let's be fair.
Think of a few fit birds from school......atleast one of them will be in marketing
I quite often lay on my bed with my eyes closed. No, I’m not napping, I’m visualising how to make something. I heard a Michelangelo quote that goes something like “finding the angel (in the marble) is the hard part, setting her free is easy”.. because he would stare at the marble blocks for days before starting carving. Thinking is definitely working!
How do I go about claiming the overtime when thinking about something work-related keeps me up half the night?
If I could claim TOIL for every work-related dream or nightmare that I've had over the years, I'd never be in work! I mentioned the idea to my manager a couple of years back and she laughed me out of the office. If you find a way, can you let me know please?
I’m still working on that.
Great, then to 2 hour bike ride I took at lunch wasn't an extended lunch break it was 50% work.
I think we vastly overestimate how long human brains can intensely focus in a day. I used to get this with revising. Five good quality hours done in sections was my absolute limit. People sitting in the library revising for 10-12 hours were not actually doing that no matter how much they were kidding themselves imho. I could see half the time that they would actually be sat on social media. I could up my work hours doing stuff like proofreading, editing, making revision materials etc, but actually switched on focusing was much less. Edit: clarity.
Thinking about a problem and ‘doing’ things on autopilot are still work 🙌
What if im just thinking about thinking about a problem?
It’s part of the process a professional approaches a problem. I mean, so long as you’re thinking ABOUT a solution to the problem.
I don’t even want to think about the amount of time my brain is whirring away thinking about work problems whilst I’m in bed trying to rest… 🤪🤦🏽♀️
I do a whole day the night before sometimes by worrying and then when I get logged in the morning on I’m so over it.
Just enough not to get fired.
You sound like a straight shooter with upper management potential.
Thanks Bob.
Ah, you got it sussed, throw in looking busy by having lots of pointless meetings and you'll climb the ladder fast!
I have perfected looking stressed. Walking around the laptop looking slightly angry and perturbed
Best to book a meeting for 1-2 hours you know will take 5-10 mins than your calendar looks full and you can spend the free time browsing Reddit.
On a usual day, I do 100% for the first hour just because I want to get on top of emails and clear all the little tasks to prevent them stacking up. After that, then it's maybe 60% for the rest of the day, so long as everything that needs to be done, gets done. 100% again at various intervals depending on if a piece of urgent/last minute work gets dropped on my desk I don't think anyone except probably frontline NHS staff and teachers actually work 100% all day. *Ps. That's not an invitation for everyone to tell me how hard they work* Most people, assuming their workplace is staffed properly shouldn't have to be at 100% all day. You'd burn out, and generally hard work is rewarded with more work so the incentive isn't there.
> and generally hard work is rewarded with more work so the incentive isn't there. Yeah, hard work in my personal experience always leads to more work **and** less credit for that same work in the future, it’s basically diminishing returns until you hit the point where giving 110% is seen as slacking.
Yup, and it can work against you when you're seeking a promotion. If you already go above and beyond what's expected of you, it'd be incredibly hard for an employer to fill your role with someone who works at the same level. I always think it's good practice to get the work done, be available to take on additional ad-hoc tasks when asked so that you appear helpful/a team player, but also under promise and over deliver. Tell them a job will take a 2 days and then drop it in at the end of day 1.
On Saturday night I did a 12.5 hour hospital shift, I took no break and used the toilet once, the rest of time I was working constantly as fast as I could. 5 minutes of that was spent listening a a teenage boy moaning about how no one else seemed to know what they were f**king doing while I was trying to convince him and his partner not to end up with a dead kid. I was still getting his partner ready for theatre while I listened, don’t waste a second you don’t have. On night shifts when there are quiet moments, I fill them with mandatory training, audit and student teaching.
Fair play to you. Honestly, I don't know how you people battle on in those roles. Especially given the pay. I simply don't have the drive or compassion I guess to flog myself at 100% all day everyday.
I get a great deal of satisfaction from my job. Which is good because I certainly don’t do it for the money!
Thats the NHS for you. Tbf I've had to cut down to short shifts ( due to health problem) but when I'm supposed to start at 6, I'm ready & set to go by 6 ( not arrived get thing ready etc) I don't stop one after the other until shift time is up. When I read about what people in offices & other work places do ....... Gotta admit I think I chose the wrong profession. My friend ( theatre sister for many years) always said all us lot will have kidney/ bladder issues in the future, 1 piss in 12/13/14 hrs day in day out ain't good
I work in a busy emergency department and used to have a similar experience to what you describe. Please look after yourself better. There is time to go toilet. There is time to take a drink, it's not your fault it's hectic and understaffed. If you find yourself not able or willing to stand up to your seniors who say you can't, then make sure you repeatedly use those sick days to recover. Eventually you'll be pulled in for monitoring, and asked what can your employer do to help...the answer is enforcing breaks. You are replaceable. Your health isn't
you sound like my wife with her stories (shes a midwife working for the NHS doing the same shifts as you!). I look like i do sod all compared to you as a WFH software engineer.
I’m a teacher in a secondary school. I’d say I’m at 100% in lessons to practically 10% in my PPA (“free”) time. I just cannot plan lessons effectively in my free time at work. So then I end up doing work at home… more fool me I guess!
>I don't think anyone except probably frontline NHS staff and teachers actually work 100% all day. I can hear the caring, retail and hospitality sectors screaming at you right now!!!!
Retail and hospitality have down time. Not many people at a pub between 12-5pm. Not many people shopping at H&M at 9am on a Tuesday.
Eh I'm BOH and pretty much always on the go. Less down time at my new place as we feed about 300-500 people a day. It's alot of prep but I don't feel stressed or rushed. I just putter along
Exactly the same as this, assuming we’re fully staffed on the day. My main bits of work are always the first and last hour of the shift. I have days when my motivation is high so I’ll just blitz things all day and pick up miscellaneous tasks, but other days I just coast after the first hour. I’d say on certain days I can very easily go at least an hour without actually doing anything, but I like to fill those gaps with small useful stuff that contributes.
When I’m in the office, maybe 10-20% of the time, WFH a lot higher, 70-80% I’d guess
Just to buck the prevailing attitude on reddit that seems to be "I get loads more done at home," I'd *love* for that to be true because it would justify working from home more, which I prefer. But I honestly do pretty much fuck all at home. I hate coming in to the office but at least I actually do some stuff there.
Pretty much all the studies done have found wfh is less productive. I love wfh from a personal perspective but it's hard to believe the general reddit attitude that everyone's 10x more productive at home fully matches up with reality. I'm just not convinced that it's how human behaviour works.
Pretty much every independent article Ive read shows the opposite: WFH is more productive than in an office. The only study Ive seen that showed the opposite was from a small sample in a specific sector and was paid for my a publisher that had links to the London property market… hardly trustworthy! I’m firmly in the camp of whatever works best for you as an individual. If you are more productive and prefer being in an office more, then you should definitely do that. Alternatively if you’re more productive at home, then definitely do that. I get a lot more done from home than the occasional trip into the office. In fact I’m only on Reddit now as I’m in the office. 3 more hours to go…
This is it - there doesn't have to be a one size fits all - if those WFH aren't as productive it will be pretty quickly noticed
Yeah that's bullshit. Edit: what other guy said
For me, three reasons: That slight boss syndrome where "they think I'm not working hard from home, so I will work extra hard" (that's my personal psychology though) Less distractions, very easy to lose time at the office in chit-chat (although I can miss it) Slightly more relaxed and balanced life - choreslike washing / cooking / cleaning etc can get 10 minutes every 2 hours, rather than build up. And the hour I save commuting often (but not always) goes into extra work. It's hard to be subjective about things, but I'd say 50% more productive, and 100% prefer it.
Yeah, I'm honestly surprised that I seem to see the comment "I get so much more done at home" so often.
I think there are too many variables to generalise. Some people might have lots of interruptions in their office so they can't get the 'heads down' stuff done, but others might give themselves some time off during the workday to do other things when WFH. Personally, I think if I'm on deadline I probably get more done at home because of fewer interruptions, but if it's a quiet time of the year I'd be more productive in the office because if I'm at home and it's quiet I'm likely coasting.
Source? I’ve only seen the opposite and I’m genuinely interested in this. I wonder if it’s sector specific.
So the main article i read a while ago was (i think) this one: https://wfhresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/SIEPR1.pdf. It references quite a few studies which support the point. I suspect my memory was mainly coloured by tons of news articles more than actual research though. So i think i'd have to retract my earlier statement of "most research", as I can't really find a whole lot else supporting the point (or, to be fair, refuting it). Googling it is a bit of a nightmare, it seems you can find an article to support whatever point of view you want, most of them just news articles referencing news articles. And if you do manage to track down sources, many are just surveys, which are kind of unhelpful at the best of times, let alone with something so prone to bias either way. Ultimately i have no idea whether WFH is actually more productive, and it probably depends on so many different factors that its silly to make blanket statements either way. Regardless, i fucking love working from home because work productivity is just about near the bottom of my personal priorities, so for me the point is moot.
So maybe edit your first comment and cross it out, as it is misleading.
I think competent people are more productive at home. Purely anecdotal of course, but has been my experience that those who need to 'feel the buzz' of the office are generally less competent
This is absolutely bullshit lol
I only know me, if I wfh I get loads done, I don't have to deal with the relentless procession of people wanting some inane thing that gets in the way but somehow becomes the priority
Is that true though? It didn’t take me long to find this https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0274728 and this https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10072379/ which both suggest neutral or positive productivity changes from working from home. In my very quick scan I didn’t find any literature suggesting a wholly negative impact.
I’ve never heard this before and that’s not my personal experience, ehhh
Show the studies. The studies I saw, albeit pre COVID, showed significant benefit to wfh.
For me, going in means spending 20 minutes finding somewhere to sit, then you find a desk but there’s no mouse or one of the screens doesn’t work. Then you go make tea and chat to multiple people in the kitchen. Go back to the desk and someone walks past who wants to chat as they haven’t seen you in a while. Then you have to move because someone’s booked the office you’re sitting in. Then it’s lunch. Then just repeat the morning. At home, my desk is my desk. No one’s stolen the mouse. No one can book my desk. No one is chatting to me while I make tea. No one walks past me and wants to waffle about shit I don’t care about. Come 4.55pm in the office, I’m walking out the door because of traffic. At home… 5.45pm and I’m still working.
It depends who you work with, at the office there’s a lot of distractions
For me it really depends what I'm doing. If I have a task to focus on I work as well at home as I do in the office. If I have a day with very little actual work to do, I'm more productive in the office because I'll force myself to find something. Whether that's training or filing. If I'm at home with little actual work to do, I'll end up cleaning or scrolling or reading.
My issue is I get the same amount of work done at home as I do in the office except once I'm done with my work at the office, I can't go sit on my arsenal watching TV for 4 hours. I have to appear busy.
I’m more productive at home. I find the office noisy and distracting. I guess it depends what kind of personality you have and what kind of work you do.
Agreed. Get significantly more done whilst I'm WFH. At the office I get pulled into meetings / conversations / shitty Internet / finding rooms for privacy to make calls / heading out to find lunch etc. Working from home is much more efficient for me. Going into the office is nice to see colleagues and chat but I usually spend the following days catching up.
Same for me. At home I put on some music and work away all day. I even eat at my desk while I watch a video and reply to stuff. At the office I get pulled into a conversation every 15-20 minutes about something stupid and always go out for a long lunch.
Yes! There is so much dead time when in the office. Genuine surprised that some companies seem dead set on ending remote working.
I know, it baffles me. They’re the ones that complain about lack of talent too, ignoring the fact people want flexibility now. Not sitting in some soulless office waiting for 5pm
In the office I genuinely got 10% done. Everyone wants to talk to you!
I’m literally the opposite of this. When I’m in the office I get loads done because I don’t have distractions and kind of have to work because my boss is right there. At home I end up getting distracted and have far too much freedom to just procrastinate and like, idk, stare at a bug on the window.
Vastly variable. Some days it will be 85%, others 5%.
I'm a primary school teacher. Literally from the moment I arrive to when I leave, I work. It's the only way to get everything done. Edit - Everything is shorthand for everything that can't wait: important paperwork, stupid crap your 'leaders' (managers) ask for, lesson and resource preparation, tidying the classroom, trip planning, safeguarding etc., etc., I'm in at 7.30 and try to leave by 5. But I'll usually have one or two things to do at home. It's just... a lot.
My OH is writing reports and is likely to be doing so until she falls asleep
Yup, and even then, it's very rare to actually "get everything done". There's always something else that could be done!
Research shows that people are generally only productive about 2-3 hours a day, and that figure can be the same while working from home, but the quality of WFH work can be much higher. We also tend to rate our own productivity time much higher when asked how productive we are. I used to go to work, now I WFH. When in work, you'll find a lot of people are trying to appear productive, but aren't actually doing anything. NO ONE can be going flat-out all day, that's just not how the human brain works, unless it's something you're highly interested in doing. You're also just as productive in a 6 hour day as an 8 hour day, so I'm a big advocate for that, and the 4 day work week. Also, what one person can achieve in an hour will be different to another person. People are also more productive a certain times of the day than others, like I pretty much get all my work done in the first or last two hours of the day, purely depending on how well I slept. I also stick to "work smarter, not harder" and I do the minimum amount of effort to get the maximum output. I did a PhD, I've done my time of working myself to absolute death for nothing. As long as you get your work done, I don't think it really matters how productive you are in a day, and there's no point comparing yourself to others because we all work differently.
Thanks for this! I have a PhD too and I know I could not keep up that level of work forever!
The less you earn, the more you work.
It’s just different kinds of work. I’d agree when it comes to physical work and most things that are ‘hands on’. IMO responsibility is a form of work, and that’s what tends to increase as you progress.
Yeah, I used to be physically exhausted after a Sunday lunch shift washing dishes when I was 14 and earning £2 an hour. The absolute most damage I could have done to the business would have been a couple of grand for a new dishwasher but really it was a couple of quid for the odd dropped plate here and there. My current job I an sit on my arse all day mostly chatting to colleagues but a few crazy clicks could cost the company 10s of millions.
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Coming from an office environment, I 100% agree. I worked my way up from call centre staff, to working on a technical project, to a data analyst. Each time my salary went up and my workload/stress levels went way down. I also have way better benefits when it comes to annual leave and flexible working. It's all a scam, people.
Being an analyst, outside of being a consultant, is pretty chill.
I work in an industry where I see people at the top of it and I absolutely don't want their job. They work their fucking asses off. No thank you. I don't want a contract that states I have to be available by phone 24/7 and you can interrupt my annual leave with a four hour call.
Gross generalisation but you’re not completely wrong
Yep Ask any factory worker, warehouse worker etc... Minimum wage, constant shit jobs every day, no work benefits, shit annual leave (20 days PLUS bank holidays)
Sort of true in terms of actually producing things but you’re expected to take on additional responsibility/accountability. I’ve found things to get disproportionately more stressful as I’ve progressed.
As a doctor it depends if you want the true answer or the daily Mail answer.
True please
If you include the overtime in the stats 110%, if you deduct time spent trying to navigate stupid outdated systems (such as IT/phone numbers that don’t work etc) 70%
Totally agree on the outdated systems in use
\[exit stage left\]
We are still waiting Doc!
Sorry was sleeping (I’m working nights). Truth is: Depends on speciality. For example a less-than-consultant grade doctor doing medical or surgical ward cover can go 12 hours forgetting to even drink water or wee. So 100%+. On the other end of the spectrum are specialities like ITU where they might go some time not giving 100% (and being able to actually sit down for a coffee) but then when called upon must spring to action giving 100%+ performing what seems like magic to non-intensivists to swoop in like Superman/woman and save someone’s life. A large proportion are GPs who usually work 100%+. 10 minute appointments back to back all morning. Lunch time which includes all the admin/home visits and little time for actual lunch. Then return to back to back appointments. Day length is from around 8am to 6/7pm. Most GPs do 8 sessions a work at most which is 4 full 10 hour+ days because more than that would burn out the hardiest of people. If the GP is running the duty list then they are working at ridiculous capacity sometimes being allocated less than 5 minutes to sort out complex issues. On average most fall into the 100%+ category though there are of course some specialities that have it a lot better than others. I have some experience in medicine, surgery, A&E, GP, psychiatry, ITU and anaesthetics so can’t speak for all sub specialities. Additionally, there will always be lazy people in every walk of life and medicine isn’t exempt. Sometimes you come across people that work at 50% capacity all the time meaning the rest of their colleagues have to work harder to pick up the slack.
When I was teaching, around 90% - plus overtime so around 110%
Only 110%? I used to get to work at 7.30, prep everything, then teach for 5+ hours, and do photocopying and other prep during break and lunch time. Then leave work around 4, drive home and have tea and relax. Then from about 6.30pm-8.30pm or sometimes even as late as 10pm, I'd be planning or marking. Then I'd do the same the next day. I'd spend at least 5 hours marking or planning over the weekend too. Half term, Christmas and Easter I'd find myself thinking, "Great, a week where I can catch up on my planning / marking!" I think during my first year, I worked for 60 hours a week and was paid for 37 hours. After the first couple of years, it got easier re:planning, but not re:marking. I don't miss the relentlessness of it.
You absolutely should not be working 100% all, or even most, of the time. That leads to burnout and a whole host of mental and physical issues. (See the current state of front-line NHS, for example) Honestly, I keep myself busy, but it's very, very rare that I'm actually laser focused and devoting the full 100%. That's for times of disaster (IT, so disaster means a major service failing for a large number of users) And I enjoy my job. Although if I had the money to not work, I'm not saying I would stay at it...
I entirely agree, but unfortunately employers don't seem to see it this way. I work for a Great British brand, which like so many others is now owned wholly by overseas investment companies. On an almost weekly basis now I see changes to processes designed to cut costs and squeeze that last drop from the workforce and the customer. More and more aspects of the job are measured. In the last few months there has been a handful of instances of guys in their 20s and 30s ending up in hospital with heart attack like symptoms, which have mostly been put down to stress. Quite a contrast from 20 years ago when your manager would take you out to lunch on your birthday, or your wife would receive flowers when it was hers ... Capitalism has a lot to answer for.
And the funny thing is, if someone ran their car engine at the redline every time they used it, everyone would tell them they're an idiot and will wreck their car really quickly. We understand that machinery doesn't handle 100% constantly without severe degradation, but so many places think that human beings - who are a hell of a lot more complex physically - should be able to manage it. Not to mention the fact that machines don't have minds that sometimes try their best to break the physical parts...
Completely. We even had a speech from a regional manager recently about how stress was actually good for you, and if you had no stress in your job it wouldn't be fulfilling etc... clearly it had been carefully crafted from higher up the chain and rolled down the company. Even worse is that they're constantly ticking boxes to exonerate themselves of blame when it goes wrong by appointing "mental health first aiders" and the like. No, just stop piling on the pressure and we'll be just fine.
As a cleaner 99%, don't have the option to slack off.
Your work is appreciated 🫡
Probably a solid 3 hours work and 5 hours of gaming/gym/sleeping
I'm supposed to work 7 hours per day, 35 hours per week. Actual time spent working is less than that usually. Most days it's 4 or 5 hours at most, and some days it might only be 1 or 2 hours actually working.
This is my experience too. I really want to drop to 30hrs per week and I would definitely still be able to get all my work done in that time but I’d have to take a pro-rata pay cut, it’s madness really.
Before I left, teaching - 730 till about 5 or 6pm. Sometimes we had meetings later than that or night school classes till 8 or 9pm. Different league all together than normal office work. You can’t just coast midday for an hour or two or piss about answering emails. That’s why so many quit. You are always ‘on’.
It’s why I quit. Hated having to plan lessons, write emails to parents, and mark work until 7pm most days. I usually only got 1 day off a week. Teachers are loaded with more and more responsibilities and the behaviour of kids are just getting worse each year from my experience. In my last year of work, I had to print the majority of my worksheets at home. It was exhausting.
Nobody in in office does 100%. I’m a solicitor and so I track every 6 minutes of my day with software. In an average 7 hour day, it can often be difficult to deliver 5 hours of output, by the time you factor in all the downtime between tasks, non-meetings, waiting for calls, toilet breaks, coffee etc. It will be the same for most professional services. I can’t speak for other sectors but I expect there’s a wide spread. Some will be working flat out, and some will have a lot of downtime.
I'd say I keep an even 80% most days. Some days it's less, other days it's more. A couple of months back, I had full on 100% days for two weeks. It was exhausting and absolutly not possible to maintain that level all of the time - but every now and ten, when thre are issues, you do have to properly pull your finger out and go for it.
I'm self employed so not sure it counts - but I work 3 to 4 days a week. I get in at 9 but just kinda chill till 10 with maybe a couple of emails. Then client facing for 2-3 hours, then chill for an hour with admin if there is any, then home.
What's that old joke? I always give 100% at work! 12% on Monday, 23% on Tuesday, 40% on Wednesday, 20% on Thursday and 5% on Friday.
I work at a big accountancy firm (I’m not an accountant though) where we are expected to complete a timesheet on a daily basis and therefore give 100% each day. We can’t make things up or charge more time than we work since these timesheet reports are reviewed regularly. It’s having a pretty bad impact on my mental health. Reading this thread and realizing again not all jobs are like this makes me even more depressed. I can’t easily get another job either as I’m on a work visa and not many companies are willing to sponsor for this role. Fml I guess
Is there not an unwritten rule where you are that you always fill in the timesheet for 8 hours a day? It’s what I have seen in every professional services firm I have worked at or with.
Depends on how you define “working” also depends what particular role I’m doing at any given time. Say I’ve been asked to stand on a locus(scene guard) for ten hours you could argue that by literally just standing their doing as I was asked for said hours I have worked 100% of the time, normally the relief arrives late so you could argue I’m actually giving more than 100%. My current role is much more about watching and waiting certain people and it requires constant focus. However there’s also office time that generally consists of me procrastinating or getting right into the minutia of something that isn’t actually important to the bigger picture. So overall I’d say being generous to myself maybe 75%.
I work in hospitality so 100% every day. We don't get to chill out.
WfH.. but the 2 hours I spend in the bath is working as I'm thinking about the problem which means when I come to implement it , it takes 5 hours not 10.
Same, but I go for what I call "mental health walks". They last two hours and while listening to podcasts I think about a problem I need to solve. Over the last four years I've solved more problems this way than I would've if I sat in the office staring at my monitor.
Rubber ducking (literal)
When I was working in an agency I was full on - 8-10 hours a day, 5 days a week. Just churning it out with little time to think. Now I work for myself, and with nigh on 30 years experience under my belt I can knock up work a lot quicker, and find solutions in minutes rather than days which gives me more time to think, and more time away from my mac. I'm still always on duty, but if you compare how I work now to how I worked as a junior you'd probably call me lazy, even though my productivity is infinitely more than back then.
When I was in an office every day I mastered the art of looking busy. In reality I was teaching myself stuff and making lists in spreadsheets half the day. I quickly realised if I worked for all 7 and a half hours my productivity was double anyone else's so they must have been doing the same as me.
I'm supposed to work 7.5 hours a day. I end up working maybe 8, 9 hours most days. The joys of being nhs frontline.
I'm a teacher. I work constantly, without stopping, always thinking, for my entire work day. And then I full on crash and burn and am absolutely useless in the evenings and over the weekends. Then I have a week off and just as I get back to normal functioning power I start all over again 😂
I’m a former teacher. I feel ya. Quit after finishing my NQT for this reason.
My company is a shitshow ran by idiots, honestly I do the bare minimum to get me through a work day without anyone speaking to me
Maybe around 3 hours in a 7 hour work day, I guess, in the office. Maybe 1 or 2 WFH.
I think anyone who fucks around with a computer (like me) is very rarely over 50% productive. I can point to weeks without much work but never weeks straight of full on crunch. Also the idea that WFH is more productive is a fantasy. I am almost fully remote and the latitude to just do fuck all with no oversight is massive. Teachers obviously get a lot of holiday but are 100% always on whilst at work. Emergency services I imagine there is waiting around but preparedness is part of the job. Frontline NHS staff, bar staff in clubs, fast food workers are also broadly run off their feet.
WFH is absolutely more productive for me and it isn't even close.
The trick is to look like you're busy and do just enough to not get fired
When I’m in the office it’s 100% and it makes the day go by so fast. But mostly when wfh I’m probably around 65% as the pressure to perform is no longer there. Overall, I think I’m better off in the office when it comes to more crucial tasks. If there’s mundane, repetitive stuff then I’ll stay home.
I work in a busy lab so depending on the shift 90-100% of the time. There's always something to do.
Do meetings count? If so about 6 hours a day. If not. About 30 minutes a day.
Really depends on my motivation levels. Could be as high as 90% and as low as 5%. Last week, for instance, I had no motivation and no one in my team was in due to half term so I did fuck all. I think that’s only natural, I cannot be 100% otherwise I d burnt out.
Define working. I'm in IT Support (but the sort of place where the helpdesk is also infrastructure etc). While I do have plenty of projects a good chunk of my job is reactive not proactive so I'm sometimes sat with not much to do. If I'm not working on a project or doing cert training I might just be reading the news or shooting shit with someone. I'd say about 70% of my day is actual work of some kind and the rest is less active time.
At the office probably 5h, with very little time for intense focus, which makes my work pretty slow. Working from home I’d say 5h of intense focus, 2h of emails / meetings / admin tasks, 1h of trying to find motivation / doing simple things until I get in the zone. At the office there’s always someone looking to chat or go for tea breaks. There is a lot of noise since it’s open space, and it’s difficult to work uninterrupted. At home, it takes 2min to make tea and I drink it while working, no-one breaks my focus when I’m in the zone, and I don’t get distracted by my colleagues’ problems (they really try to fix it themselves before calling to me for help). I have to set up timers to remember about breaks (because I still think better after a break), but they’re a lot shorter than at the office.
I tend to work properly from 8:30 to 1:30pm (half an hour lunch in that time) then from there to the end of the day my work turns sluggish. I do it from time to time but tend to spend more time on my phone or searching things.
About eight hours of physical work and about three hours driving.
Way less than 50% of my time is spent on actual work. However, I am here and available to support or solve any problems when they arise, which is basically my main requirement anyway.
On paper, 37 hours a week. In practice, somewhere between 50-80. My free time is not enjoyable, my weekends are marred by knowing what I have to go back to on Monday. Most weekends are spent working just to lessen the blow of the week to come. I am miserable.
I feel you. Have you considered a different career? Your happiness and wellbeing is important.
I used to work in a council call center. In between calls we were expected to work in between constantly. Wether this was approving blue badges, refusing them, answering emails. [REMOVED], safeguarding alerts from care homes, ambulance logs... It was constant busy work, and all screens faced the supervisors or you were in the direct eyeline if you were in the office. EDIT: removed a part of the post due to accidentally revealing which council I worked for.
I work out in the field, driving to different homes/businesses all day, if I don't get the work done quickly when I'm at site I'll push out at the end of the day so I work pretty hard. Technically driving between sites is working, and I am getting paid for it, but I've got music or an audiobook on and am having a chill drive. I enjoy driving so I consider this part of my work day pretty relaxing.
I’ve done some work in resource planning for call centre/admin type jobs & when calculating staff costs & FTE the company used anything from 55% to 75% when calculating efficiency. So anyone working 8 paid hours a day was only productively “working” on task for between 55-75% of that 8 hours.
Perception is key, working and looking like you are working are 2 different things. Guy in our office just happened to respond to a text coincidentally every time the IT director walked back from the toilets or kitchen, after about 4 of these across 3 days I was asked to “have a word” about being on his phone all the time. Ironically one of the hardest working in the team and it subtracted maybe 2 minutes from his workday while the smoking crew tossed it off in the car park 5x a day for 10 minutes at a time…. So we had the chat about perception and I told him to carry on doing the fantastic job he was doing as if nothing had changed. I “could” look like I had done a solid 9 hours work while delivering maybe 30 minutes if I were so inclined but I wouldn’t be doing myself any favours for playing catch up tomorrow if I did. I spend about 8 hours actually working 5 days a week and there’s always more than enough to fill an extra week after that (IT manager of sorts)
Just took a reduction in my hours through choice as I was wasting it procrastinating. I now work 30 hours a week. It couldn't be better, all with the same pay
10 minutes on a busy day. 0 if quite.
I don't trust anyone who's at over 75%. The human brain needs downtime to be able to work at its best. If someone has been flat out at 100% all week I wouldn't expect their Friday report to make much sense. I block out about 60% my calendar for routine jobs, project work and support tickets (I'm an IT head). Everything else is considered time to used at my discretion - ad-hoc meetings, admin catch up or just browsing Reddit to give my brain a rest.
When I worked for a charity for 5 years (marketing), I worked 99% of the time that I was there (16h a week). I didn't gossip, leave early or look at Facebook. I couldn't have kept up the same focus if it had been full time however, though if it had been a customer-facing job rather than desk based, perhaps I could. Computer work should in my view be legally restricted to only a few hours a day (or do 2h on, 1h off), for the sake of people's mental well-being.
About eight hours of physical work and about three hours driving.
About 4 - 5 Hours. The company I work for is very small, so not a lot of stuff tends to come up.
In my old position, maybe 30 minutes - 2 hours a day depending on the time of the month. Current position pretty much working non stop from the moment I start with the occasional 5 minute toilet/drink break
Depends a lot on the project. Job I'm on (thankfully got off-hired from today) you've a job to make up even a few hours of trying to look busy, other jobs you can have a 12.5hr shift and be hell for leather for at least 11.5hrs
"...all "seem" to be..." - appearances can be disceptive. No one can work at 100% effort each day. It's unsustainable.
When I have worked in front of house in restaurants it was regularly 100%. Every spare moment is used to clean, check stock, etc. Similarly in retail (I guess this depends on the definition of work) I had to be on my feet for the entire shift, couldn’t sit down, couldn’t have a phone on shop floor, and had to fold clothes if I wasn’t helping customers. Both were physically tiring but I had minimal responsibilities, could leave my work behind when I finished my shift, and didn’t cause stress.
I agree it's unsustainable, that doesn't mean it doesn't happen. It does happen, it just includes crashes and burnouts.
60% actually welding and grinding, 20% breaks, 20% moving stuff on a crane/clean up
So I'm a teacher and academic support. I teach adults. My day should start at 8, but I'm in before that. Check email, print worksheets. Class starts at 8:15. Lasts 90 mins, 15 mins break which is usually spent marking homework, but I might be able to make a cup of tea. Then teaching for 90 mins, another 15 mins break where I check materials for the next class. Luckily, I'm teaching the same class I've taught before but I'd have more prep to do if I had to make it new. After that, I get my lunch break. Should be an hour, but often 30 -45 mins. In the afternoons, I might have student queries, clubs to run, materials to make, progress tests to invigilate, progress tests to grade, monthly reports to generate and send to class teachers, also got to chase said teachers for reports, before sending them on. For the clubs, I have to make the timetable and posters as well as materials. I should finish work at 4:30. I usually leave about 5pm. Which isn't bad, but it would be later if I took my full break. So I spend about 6 hours actually working. Maybe more.
Probably about 2-3 hours maximum a day, but spread over 8 hours so I look productive. The rest I’m doing housework or gaming
I’m working about 80% of the time between 9-5. That missing 20% is taken with making drinks, snacks, lunch breaks, obeying the demands of my cat, comfort breaks, discussing with my husband what’s on the menu for dinner that evening…. Im most productive probably the last hour of that whole day. The rest of the time is meetings, emails, teams messages, calls etc. I rarely get any actual work of my own done (with an output to show) until the end of the day. I can thank my ADHD for that little treat for me.
At my old job (inbound call centre), every fucking second. At this job (IT) it probably averages out to about 5 hours a day.
I'm at work from 8am - 5pm Mon - Fri. The following sections of time are complete write-offs, guaranteed; Monday - All day Tuesday - 8am - 10am, 3:15 pm - 5pm Wednesday - 8am - 10am, 3:15 pm - 5pm Thursday - 8am - 10am, 3:15 pm - 5pm Friday - All day That leaves 10am - 3pm, Tuesday to Thursday, with an hour for lunch each day during that time, so around 12 hours a week or so. If my boss has the ability to monitor my internet, this is all tongue in cheek, and a coincidence that I'm on Reddit during one of those times I've designated as a write-off...
About an hour
I have a skill job so when I’m required it’s 110% giving it everything. The other 7-10 hours of the day is loitering waiting to maybe be required again
I'm a junior doctor. I've worked jobs with more downtime but my current one is very busy In a 9 hour shift I'd have 20 minutes break for eating lunch, probably a total of 20 minutes chatting with people spread out across the whole day and then a few toilet breaks. The rest of the time I'm very much working and I'll usually leave somewhere between 10 to 30 minutes late (and occasionally much much more than that)
Retired. Burnt out. Retired very early. Love it
A few hours a day when I WFH. I’m diagnosed ADD and suffer hugely with executive dysfunction. I get myself into the office a couple of times a week where a lack of anything else to do means I can work with minimal interruption (save for lunch) for 7 odd hours.
100% I'm a dog walker. 🙂
I mainly wfh, in the office once or twice a month or so. At home I’m probably working 80% of the time, hard. I work in data analysis so it’s good to have an environment with minimal distractions. In the office I’m being asked to sort some excel or bi report problem out for someone, or help fix a formula in VBA. Or help someone out with some menial IT crap, for example last week a customer service guy had plugged his laptop into the dock and was frustrated as to why the screens were duplicated and not having multiple displays… I don’t mind being in an office for meetings etc if required, but I spend 80% of my time in the office being distracted, at home I’m much more efficient and relaxed, but that’s just my introverted arse.
programmer. am I working if, for example, I am compiling millions of lines of code at 400000 lines per second while at the same time responding to a reddit post?
Well, it’s a retail job so it’s hard to judge. Generally there’s always something you can find to do, but if you’re the only one manning the till, then you can’t leave it unattended to go and tidy the shop floor, so when there’s no customers you are often just standing there, thinking to yourself. I’m probably actually working in some capacity or another for 80-90% of the shift.
I don't think there is an easy answer to this one. Give me the right job and I can be pulled right into it for a very long day. To the point were I resent stopping to eat lunch. Then on the other hand when you ask me to produce pretty customer documentation I struggle to maintain focus for even half a day. If really depends on who you are and what you are working on. I also found I don't have the same stamina for intense dev work I did in my 20's or 30's. But I also now see more value in the meetings I initially thought were a waste of time :-)
Oh man, today I have been doing fuck all…
4 hours per week out of 37
I'm utterly bored and demotivated so do bare minimum on Mondays and Fridays to keep the wheels spinning, then focus on meetings and deliverables Tuesday to Wednesday. I'd say no more than 15 hours a week. In my defence, I would add that I'm vastly experienced and productive and get stuff done much faster and efficiently than most people in my role, and I get away with it because I save my clients relatively large sums of money.
Very jealous of all the comments in here. As a teacher, 200%.
Depends on the day, if I've got projects to get on with and useful meetings I can work intensely for half the day and spend the other half autopiloting smaller tasks, doing meetings, or taking quick coffee breaks. Unfortunately my job is dependent on senior management giving things the go-ahead and there's a culture of talking a lot and not saying anything, so on a typical day I spend time faffing around with admin and in a meeting that could've been an email, while a lot of the serious work I could get on with is stuck higher up thr food chain.
It’s so variable. Sometimes I’ll do 8 hours where I literally do not stop, don’t check my personal phone at all and barely manage lunch. Most of the time probably 3 hours max but I do a lot of driving.
About 60-70% id say
9-11 100% then 11-3 50% and then 3-6 75% I reckon
In a call centre the best case scenario you can plan for is about 72% of the time you're paying for will be worked once you look across the month and factor in sickness, annual leave, team meetings, coaching time, company training, 1:1 meetings with your manager, breaks and 5% fudge time for loo breaks and stuff. This goes down further if you add long term sickness, maternity, paternity, fire drills and the like. I'm offering this as an example for a benchmark as call centres general have the infrasture in place to capture the exact times of people working: log in, log out, not available to take a call etc.
Meetings take up the vast majority of my day - Sometimes up to 5 hours of meetings that, for the most part, are completely avoidable. On meeting free days, I could mop up what I need to do in around 2 hours?
There are definitely some days where I've been actively working 100% of the time (or close to). I don't enjoy these days though because I'm not working that hard out of choice, it's because I'm up against it with deadlines etc. If I don't have imminent deadlines to stress about, then probably 5-6 hours a day I'm actively working. I'm definitely less motivated to work hard now than I was pre-pandemic, for reasons I'm sure would resonate with many of you
9 hour day, about 2.5hrs, little less on a Thursday. I don’t think I’ve worked throughout an entire shift in my life tbh. Hospitality, Amazon, DPD, DHL, Heathrow, and now various accountancy practices. None of them have been a solid 8/9 hours work.
At the moment I’m on a 7 month long military promotion course, which is just like being at school, but I’m 37.
I work at Greggs so apart from the 15 min break I get usually it is 100% of the shift 😂
When planning my teams work I have always worked on 5 productive hours. When I schedule more than that things get delayed. I don't tell the team that they are expected to only work 5 hours a day! But not everything can be measured. A quick question while making a coffee may be more productive than an email chain. Personally when running a business I worked long days and would get 8+ hours of productive time.
About 20-30% of the time. So like, 3 hours-ish? The other 5 are spent on reddit or youtube.
I've just been to work for two full days and watched movies lol, in a carer for teenagers they don't get out of bed till 5 lol pretty boring at times but the shifts are awesome 2 on 4 off
Actively in work thought, pretty much most of the day. I’m a control freak I plan for everything.
ranges from 0 minutes - 6 hours max id say
85%
Four to five hours
All said and done, about 3 hours, which is an improvement for me. I my years of working in IT I don't think I've ever worked solidly for the whole day.
At an old job we had work timesheets - basically you wrote everything down as you did it. Pathetic waste of energy. Editing pdf - 7 minutes Phone call - 3 minutes Create logo - 41 minutes etc I knew one guy who would sit down at 9am and just write "Dealing with Emails - 3 hours" because that was half our workload. Oh and we were advised not to include all the pointless meetings that were called at zero notice ... But to answer the original question, it was probably 3 hours. I think it was done to make us feel guilty at the end of the day and be more productive.
On a quiet day maybe 1 hour of productive work and 2 hours of calls. Can be less. On a busy day this would be more like 4 hours of productive work and 6 hours of calls.
Every moment I am there, being there is work. I tend to stay home when not getting paid
I am a receptionist at the HMRC, on a quite day I maybe work 1-1.5 hours, on a busy day maybe 3-3.5