How much time do you actually spend working?

33 comments

1. I surf reddit, I do work between but in my down times if I’m not reading up on products I’m just reading here

2. 20 min to an hour. Feel bad about it though. This is my second job, I haven’t worked for 3 years but the pay is really nice.

3. A mentor once told me I needed a side hustle because “you’ve figured out how to do a 40 hour/week job in 20 hours” and dammit if that isn’t one of the most poignant things I’ve gotten out of my career at this point lol

4. I wouldn’t fret too much over this tbh. I think there are a lot of people, especially WFH, experiencing this to some degree (though I’d probably caveat that with it depends on the industry, job, etc).

   There are days where I am slammed and am working on various project, attending meetings, etc.

   There are other days where I find myself trying to drum up work because there’s not much going on.

   My last job (non-remote aside from Covid) had me nonstop busy most days and I felt like there was not enough time in the day to get everything done. Changing to a new job (remote and in-office) gave me a different perspective and appreciation of my time.

   I’ve learned to take advantage of the downtime (getting stuff done around the house, focusing on my health and well-being by taking a walk or exercising) and trying not to worry as long as I am meeting my goals and deadlines.

5. My last job was never ending work and a lot of aggressive gaslighting from management. My current role I’m lucky to get 1-2 hours of actual work a week for much better pay.

   I’m very bored most days, but I’m not pulling my hair out the way I was the last 5 years.

   I don’t really like it but it has given me a much better perspective on work life. I know how badly I was being exploited in my last role now and will never let that happen again.

   The only problem is the last place kind of killed my enthusiasm for work generally. When you see the sort of behaviour that’s rewarded and how much bullshit politics/favouritism actually drives corporate culture it can be pretty hard to care about any of it.

   I could just be in the wrong line of work though.

6. It’s the nature of the beast.

   You are paid for your time, not your work. IF You can do what is expected of You in less time. You’re not at fault

7. Never work in healthcare. I didn’t even have time to pee. Literally worked every minute of every shift.

   I’m always so jealous of people that don’t have job like that haha.

8. 10-15 hours. If things go wrong, 30-40

9. It is completely normal, I’ve had jobs in the past where I worked maybe 20-25 hours a week. You are still answering emails and that is working so it isn’t like you aren’t doing anything. As long as your boss is happy, you will be good if you don’t rock the boat. Ask your boss if you can take anything off of her plate from time to time as well. Learn how to make a 10 minute task last an hour (this last one is just in case you have a boss who wants to fill your time up instead of giving you the actual work you have to do.

10. I’ve been working in corporate jobs for over 10 years in a variety of roles and companies. I thought my first few jobs were a fluke because there were long periods of time where I literally did nothing at all. While there are certainly periods of time where I am working a lot now, there are still some days I don’t do anything. Your boss probably just doesn’t care. I’ve always wondered how my boss(es) just didn’t realize I was reading books on the job for hours of the day, but it was literally never an issue. A lot of office jobs IMO are just about being on call for when things do come up.

    It’s almost like it’s an open secret that everyone has to look busy and pretend like they’re working even when they aren’t. The 40-hour work week is a totally arbitrary amount of time and just doesn’t make sense for most office not jobs. Not to mention, it’s just unnatural to be working for 8 hours straight. If you can do it, WFH is a game changer. I will never return to an office again.

11. I’m currently working for a “customer experience” agency as a proofer/editor. There’s no projects that are ready for me so I have literally nothing to do this week, or next, or next. Come September I should start on a massive project, though.

    For now, I’m taking courses related to my job. And I’m taking some PTO next week since I’m not strictly needed.

    Let you manager know you’re available, the rest is on them.

12. No matter how long my tasks may take, I spread their completion out across an 8-hour period.

13. The higher I climb, the less I “work” (use my brain). I’d say I work 5-10 hours a week if I’m being honest.

    That said, I have valuable experience that my employer can use at any time. That’s why they pay me.

    I like to think about it as a fireman — a fireman is not putting out fires 40 hours a week. But when one occurs, he knows exactly what to do to put the fire out quickly and efficiently. Same thing.

14. Chances are most people at your place of work are doing the same.

    I’ve done very little this afternoon. I square that by knowing I worked a ton of hours yesterday that I didn’t need to do.

    It’s laid back where I work and as long as the work is getting done, nobody minds.

    I usually take 2 hours for lunch twice a week so I can go for a run and I’ve told them so. It was fine.

    I think it’s bit too laid back but there are weeks where it can be frantic. Next week is “clearing” at the university I work at, which is worth millions to the university. It’s where the final remaining places on courses are sorted out.

    I keep looking at jobs but the ones I want never seem to be local enough and don’t offer enough working from home.

15. I work 40hrs a week, 4-10’s. There’s some days where it rains, we don’t get much done, some days all we have on the books is to pick up a trailer or clean trucks, other days we grind from 7-8 till 4:30pm climbing towers or long lining with the bird

16. 4-6 hrs per day. $110k/year.

    I like it but I’m so bored

17. Live it up! There will be other jobs where you get no downtime at all. Use your downtime to live your life by doing little things at home to maintain cleanliness, or go for many walks and just be outside (when the weather permits) or some hobbies.

18. If I can focus and zone in to hit my target?.2.5 hours to 3 hours.

19. I’m retired, but I was a salesman when I worked, so it was pretty much ABC (Always Be Closing) 40-50 hours a week. The pay was nice, but I certainly don’t miss it.

20. I can’t relate to this at all.

    I work 12-14 hours a day, 6 days a week.

21. I work in politics as a graphic designer. During primaries, I usually work 15-30 hrs a week. In between campaign seasons, I’ll sometimes work as little as two hours in a week – all of them standing meetings.

    During the fall campaign season, though? 60-80 hrs/wk for two months straight.

    If I did the math, it would probably even out to 20-30 hrs a week for the year, maybe a little less. When I first started this job, I felt guilty for the downtime… then I got into the campaign season and that guilt dissolved. I look at it as though I’m earning the ability to relax on the job during that stretch.

22. I work as a GIS Analyst in a corporate company. Some days, I work maybe 1 hour. Other days, it’s 4-6 hours. Overall, my company loses or breaks even on me through billable hours.

    While I cannot prove this, I believe I was hired to lessen the work load of my supervisor, OR they hired me because it’s cheaper to have a direct employee vs outsourcing my work to another firm.

23. I read a while back that studies show an office worker get 3 hours of work done a day, on average.

24. Depends on my night. I’d say on average I work 4-5 hours daily. There are days though where it’s 8 hours non stop.

25. Right now, 10-12 hours of actual work a week. It’s a slow period for my company though where features were pushed back by almost 2 quarters so it’s basically jerkoff central right now.

26. ATM it’s probably 2-3 solid hours a day, for the pay I feel I should contribute more. Maybe tomorrow..

27. work is often a pendulum for me. There are weeks were I do 20 hours and weeks where I do 80. In your late 20s, you have reached this pinnacle where you are decent at your job and have earned independence, but likely haven’t yet had kids and a house and stuff to suck up your time. Use your free time effectively — get some training / certifications, post on LinkedIn, do a side hustle, take care of your mental and physical health. It won’t last forever. But plenty of people work 20 hours in a 40 hour job and act like they do 60 when talking to their bosses.

28. Talk about wasting time at work… I found out our sales market director would have a “book club” with her management team where they got drunk on zoom and talked about books.

29. Senior Management. Probably around 30 hours per week now but it can definitely go up during fire-drill periods. My team and I are experienced, and get things done quickly. They’re all remote and I’m sure that they work less hours but as long as they get their work done I don’t care.

30. I’m a manager of an IT team, and WFH about 80% of the time.

    For the most part, I don’t work 40 hours. Most of my days are spent monitoring systems, meetings about planned system/procedure improvements, addressing smallish issues, and doing manager like things – employee reviews, training, etc. If there’s a big issue though, I can easily put in a 60 hour week.

    There are definitely weeks where I feel like I’ve had far too much downtime and didn’t really *do* anything, however I have to remind myself that a well oiled machine (both people and systems) is a good thing, as I can just sit back and keep an eye on it. I’ve put years in to refining and making the systems far more robust and resilient than they were before and this is somewhat the payoff. Always scrambling and running around trying to put out fires all the time isn’t a good thing, even if it keeps you busy.

    At the same time, I do try to remind myself to keep working on some of the larger goals in the future that may be nebulous, but will eventually coalesce in to real projects. That’s the hardest transition from individual contributor to manager in my mindset: I need to purposely set aside time for planning and brainstorming.

    Since you’re early on in your career and don’t sound like you have a team under you, try using some of that time to do some training/learning if your company offers it – or seek out some on your own. Even putting in 5 hours a week over some time you can pound out some great enrichment to yourself and your career, and your employer will also view it as valuable.

31. ~2-3 hours of real work a day and about ~4 hours in various meetings.

    But some days can be beasts with all-day working sessions.

32. I’m making 2-3x the pay of my last couple jobs and doing about 1/4 of the work or less. It drives me crazy some days when I don’t have anything to do, but I keep getting outstanding evaluations, and I am not mentally or physically exhausted when I get home. I think this is what I worked so hard to achieve.

33. My first job out of college I had a lot of down time, but during the end of the month I had a lot of work. So I’d work probably 1 hour a week, and then the 4th week work 20 hours. My second job was like that too. What I didn’t like was that I always had to rush that week and it drove me insane. I’d much rather space out my work than have to work like a mad man 1 week a month.

    My last job was at a start up, and I was always busy. ALWAYS.