To have pretty much automated 90% of my job and pretend I'm very busy?

There’s a Reddit forum for those overemployed (have more than one job). Might be worth a look.

I've made jobs redundant from being efficient. If you are organised you're not constantly fire-fighting. I used to book hotels and flights for work related travel. It's far easier to get these if you book ahead rather than the day before for example! Same with filing. It's easy to file four sheets of paper and far harder if you leave it until there's hundreds!

I was lucky that in my last role I had a gym and pool onsite. I used to go to the gym or swim every day for an hour. I didn't leave the building so it didn't log. When I had external meetings I used to be away hours and no one really noticed.

In one role I used the time to learn a new language...

It can get boring though...

If I were you, I would use the spare time to develop IT package (for want of a better term) for schools based on efficiencies and quality of data outputs.

Test to see competition and demand. I suspect all schools are far behind the curve on this.

I would then license it so that you have a monthly revenue stream and the only think you have to do is integration training at the start and ongoing upkeep.

Multiple income streams:
(1) Purchase of the package (lumpsum upfront)
(2) Initial integration & training (smaller sum sump payment
(3) Licensing agreement (ongoing monthly
(4) Refresher or additional training (sumpsum payment)
(5) Bespoke additions or anything none standard (another income stream)
(6) just covers attendence- 1 fee, covers attendance & timetables - additional etc.

Make sure it cannot be copied and it's extremely difficult to unwind.

If your salary is say 50k for example, that's 500k plus pension over 10 years. Price it so they have payback over 5 and that ongoing fee is less than the salary of a full time person to do.

Rinse, repeat. 5 or 10 schools even would be well worth your while. How many schools nationwide?

Monetise and replicate.

If you can hack it, drag it out as long as possible before you get bored to actual death. I had a job for 12 yrs (hilariously, HR), approx 7 of those years I increasingly did absolutely nothing - my boss was a functioning alcoholic and just appreciated me sitting next to her for some reason, so much so that she must've known I was doing FA but couldn't be arsed to do anything about it. I technically wasn't doing anything wrong myself, there just wasn't anything to do really. So I just got really good at speed minimising/maximising excel spreadsheets on my screen and spent the rest of the days reading forums and organising my life as a single mum with a baby. Towards the end (got made redundant thankfully because I was reaching the end of how much boredom I could hack, it was destroying my brain tbh) I reckon I was doing maximum 2hrs work a week, if that. Just drag it out as long as you can mentally hack it - I read SO many stories of how people are treated so terribly in their jobs that I just think if you're safe and happy being safe, don't let the guilt override a good thing - it might never be this good again!

“AIBU to only work 5-6 hours per week when I’m paid to work full time?”
”Yes”
”Nah, f* that, I just came on here to show off 😂”

Why say anything? You're just better at the job than the last guy. Nice one :)

Hmm. Some jobs just come in fits and starts, though. I've in been one before. The risk is asking for more work, boss does not understand what you do, so you get asked to do the photocopying. Real work emergency pops up. People then get mad that you skip out on the photocopying.

Probably still cheaper than paying a freelancer.

OP, only you in you in your workplace really understands what you do. Therefore, only you can allocate you more tasks that will stretch you and benefit the workplace. Sales / PR or teaching type skills perhaps - it sounds like a lot of this job is actually convincing people to use the tools you create.

I've kind of done the same. Worked for a large company that expected things done efficiently, so developed a whole bunch of processes and spreadsheets to make things easier and quicker.

Moved to a smaller company who think I'm a whizz because I do things in half the time, twice as well as my colleagues. I've tried sharing my tricks but others still want to take two weeks to do what I can do in a few days.

Boss thinks I'm uber busy all the time. I'm really busy sometimes, but mostly my days are quite easy.

You should do what you want.

I'd be worried about someone who understands what you do arriving and realising how automated the processes are and either making you redundant or giving you more responsibility. I'd be using the free time to do training (either inhouse stuff or with line manager sign off) and looking for a better paid role.

System maintenance OP and all those reports need to be QA checked don’t you know.

If you have time on the side, learn to invest in stocks and make loads of money. It's not a second job and is very exciting / especially for someone who is a whiz with data/analysis/trends etc. enjoy...

Wow, super efficient and now an easy ride! Sounds like you're needed and respected. May not be fulfilling you but depends what you want out of life? I would love your situation lol 😆

It sounds like you are very talented.

Could you sell yourself on more money as a "streamlining" / management consultant?

School are mostly brassic at the moment, because governments haven't fully funded payrises. Dh school is talking about having to make redundancies.

They might bite your hand off

But organisations don’t need people sitting around for hours a week in case a system breaks or needs updating etc.
I totally get the concept of being paid for expertise rather than time but this isn’t a good use of the school/college’s money.
It’s mostly on them to make sure they are making effective use of their funds though.

Rtd teacher here. Fab!

Loads of professional organisations have committees - members are volunteers. It's a great way to build connections with other people in your industry (for when you do want a new role) and can be a lot of fun.

I sit on a committee and it probably only takes an hour a week, but the commitment is flexible.

My employer very happy for me to do this as representing the company and bringing all the latest updates ect back to our business.

I get to go to strategy days, conferences, events, training etc. Obviously also helping also organise these things.

Lots of different roles available, from say working in the events strand, being chair, secretary, newsletter strand, treasurer, website group ect.

I would stay but get some wfh days to do with as you like.

Don't say a word.

People talking about the role being redundant really have no idea. She leaves. The system breaks for some reason, eg the software needs upgrading or there’s a power cut or a requirement changes. Who fixes it?

Perhaps you could contract yourself out per hour for the remaining time to teach us how to automate our jobs :-)

Well I suggest you tell them?
That's what your original enquiry was.
I work in public service and work is never complete, always more to do, irrespective of how efficient one is.
Best of luck