to get life admin done on a quiet WFH day?

So your hours are flexible and you're working flexible hours? What would the issue be?

If you are able to tell your employer what you are doing and they are fine with it, it's not a problem.

This is totally fine. I do it and am happy for people I manage to do it. As long as the work gets done, I don't care if they get their banking sorted out during the day as well. I know they will put the extra effort in if needed and as part of a mature workplace I accept that the reward for that is flexibility on my part too.

YANBU. Your organisation is paying for your availability and if you’re not needed at a certain time then you can do what you want. I’m not needed until 10.30am and am up to date on my work. So far, I’ve done some housework and have scheduled some listings for eBay. I always schedule the listings to start outside of work time for two reasons. One, I’m paranoid that someone from work could see me uploading (although that would mean they also weren’t working) Two, more people are likely to be browsing in the evenings.

i think its fine - as long as you are working your hours - i regularly work 12 hours AND sometimes log on in the weekends - so if i have to do a morning supermarket run if its quiet - my boss isnt going to say no - my company are incredibly flexi tho.

You seem to be mistaking the OP - a responsible adult - for a schoolchild.
Making sensible decisions about the use of your time, achieving a decent work-life balance isn’t ‘skiving’.😂
Of course there are jobs which don’t allow for such flexibility but many do.

It’s ok to an extent but sounds like you need more than one project? Or there’s always admin to catch up on, meetings to join etc.

Is this the first time you've done this despite regularly working late OP?
I mean YABU if you often do unpaid evening work and have never taken time back before. Flexible working should work both ways.

If everyone at your work agrees that sometimes you must work longer, but you can take that time back on quieter days, that is your company's business.
If there's a job that's paid for by the taxpayer, and managers hardly do any work, only come in very little, skipping to the beauty salon while "wfh" while the worker drones have to travel in every day, and end up working longer than their paid hours, well, you can see why some people say wfh is cheating!

That was my approach when I managed a team. All I was interested in was outputs. As long as they fulfilled their objectives and completed their work to deadline I didn’t give a shit when they worked or for how long. It meant they were more inclined to be flexible when it was needed.

I do this all the time as does everyone else I know who wfh. Today I let the electrician in, washed our dressing gowns which were long overdue, and cleaned the oven. People who say YABU are just jealous.

I do a lot of life admin during my working day if I’ve completed what needs to be done. No point sitting and staring at a screen if I can bake a cake, put some laundry on and clean the bathroom.

I work with APAC, normal hours do not apply. So yeah, I switch my hours around.

I manage a team of people. We all largely WFH. I don't give a flying fuck what any of them do in the working day so long as the work gets done and they check in every hour or so / pick up their phone if I ring, in case anything urgent comes up.
But that's my team and my job and my workplace. It obviously depends on all of those things as to whether it's appropriate for you.

I’m a teacher so we don’t get skiving time although I am online.

That is shocking! That really isn't the sort of job where there's any excuse for not giving proceedings your full attention. I hope she got caught.

I am quite surprised no one's informed us all that there's 'no such thing' as life admin, though, as thatn seems to be the MN party line. 😄I'm sure they'll be along presently.

YANBU. You were up to date with your work, you were checking email and you put in the extra time when it's needed.

Though I dare say a lot of people are chiming in even as I type this, to say that unless you were at your desk (even if just staring at the screen because there was no work to do) you were stealing time from your employers. 🙄 Or maybe I've just been made cynical by the content of so many WFH threads on MN.

When I was an academic you agreed tasks with your boss and a deadline for the next meeting. How you scheduled those jobs was up to you, which is how adult people work. On my WAH days I often did other things.My boss used to walk her dogs. Work was done mostly evenings and weekends.

In my last office job we held sessions for business games every month, usually in a city center bar. I usually took the following morning off. I never asked because its better to ask forgiveness than permission. No one ever said anything. Work can be very much swings and roundabouts. However I believe it a good thing t keep track of your hours even in a salaried job.

I’ve never had a job like that, sometimes I work until 10pm depending on how busy it is. I still am in at 8:30am ready to work.

However this sounds like it is possible in your job and it sounds very sensible to do life admin whilst waiting, what else could you do? Keep refreshing your email?

Because you’re so diligent or because your employer wouldn’t allow it?

I thought presenteeism was finally over!!

Yes, it’s fine - I wfh from 1995 until I retired at the end of last year and my managers didn’t care how I allocated my time so long as I was productive, and appreciated it when I worked late (most of them were in California). It was a win-win.

I think this is fine, but I'd more usually do my tax return, fill in some forms for DS EHCP, and tidy 10 mins at a time, rather than do a full on shop and deep clean!

Yes but it sounds like OP has a flexible policy which allows this. My company explicitly allows this as well - we can flex our days however we like, as long as a) we get everything done, and b) it doesn’t interfere with scheduled meetings.

Given OP’s description of her company, I’m not really sure why she’s asking the question, since it sounds totally fine in her company’s culture and set up.