If you WFH how do you structure your day/hours?

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Do you follow a set routine every work day? Do you take no lunch, or a longer lunch? Do you have a fake commute in the form of a walk? Do you start earlier, finish earlier or do you fragment your day so much that it takes all day to complete your working hours?

How are you feeling now about the future of working, are you still happy and settled at home or are you ready to go back to the office?

I worked hybrid before. I work less than a 19 min drive away from head office. So would do 1 day per week there. Then usually would have to travel somewhere in the UK, one other day. Sometimes no head office and 2 site visits. The rest at home.

Since Covid I am at home and had 4 site visits on that time.

I do also work quite flexibly.

Generally I get up, check my emails do a bit of admin. Walk the dog then get ds up for school (though it's summer holidays at the moment). Sort breakfast and work while ds gets ready. Ds walks himself to school, I can see the gate from my front door, so I watch him go.

Work til lunch. Obviously, during that time I may wander downstairs to make a drink. I will also do things like pop a wash on, let the dogs out.

If dp is here I will take a lunch, we are allocated an hour and I would take that. If he isn't here and it's my turn to make dinner, I usually prep something at lunchtime and Make a sandwich then carry on working. So about half an hour.

Work until school finish time when I watch for ds coming back. Then he sorts himself a snack, potters about while I work til about 5.

We have dinner and the evening together. Then once ds goes to bed I might do another hour or 2 of work, depending on my current work load.

This changes quite a bit. I had a really time sensitive project a few weeks ago, so I was working about 12 hours a day for a week.

My routine is a bit skewed at the moment. Dp has taken a leave of absence for the school holidays and also we fostered a new dog from the rescue I got my other one from and she is only tiny.

Walk to my desk to start at 8.30. Take a half hour lunch any time between 12 and 1.30. I work part time and finish mid afternoon. We have started to go back to the office, but we will be working flexibly.

I have the same routine and hours as when I was in the office. I take my daughter to school / holiday club, back home for 9, log on and start work. Have 30 minutes for lunch, and finish at the same time I would in the office. This is only possible when her school / childcare is open - I had to work more flexibly during school closures.

I can take a few minutes to do household stuff here and there - empty the dishwasher, put laundry on, put clean laundry away, which is nice as I have less to do in the evenings.

I miss being in the office and seeing other people - I’ve found it hard to be stuck at home, and I don’t have a proper office so I’m just working in the dining room. I don’t like work being part of my home life - I prefer them to be separate. Looking forward to getting back in the office for a couple of days a week, but we haven’t been told when we’re going back yet (local government).

No set routine here. I work part time (0.7 FTE) and it has worked really well for me to spread that in different ways. Eg during lockdown when the DC were doing online school, I worked five short days (with interruptions from them), but now it's handy to have a full day off once a week and go on a family day out. Sometimes I go for a run in the morning and start work at 10, other days I make the most of no commute and start work early. Wfh has been good for me.

What about you OP?

Check at 7 for what is. booked for day. Do urgent emails.
Mug of tea and MN/crossword in bed.
Hour admin first thing.
Calls booked throughout day but I don’t do back to back to allow coffee and loo breaks, dog walk, washing etc.
Admin tasks in between or time blocked out for bigger tasks with a DND showing.
Working lunch as time out to walk.
Sometimes do some work in evenings as it’s easier to focus undisturbed.

We're moving to a hybrid model, so tbh I need to sort my act out. I never bothered to create a firm routine, so it varies so much. Some days I start too early and end up feeling obliged to sit until the end of my work day while not actually doing a lot. Other days, I practically fall from the bed into the computer chair to start on time.

I rarely take a proper lunch, but proceed to waste a lot of time taking 5/10 mins here and there.

I'm looking forward to being in the office for now. Having a set time to work, and seeing people. But the reality might be a bit hard, having to actually focus on work in 8 hours rather than 10 hours, intersped with loading the dishwasher, having a shower, putting the slow cooker on.

But really, consciously or otherwise, I've resisted making a true work from home routine. Telling myself it's only temporary while allowing bad habits in. I do really like working from home in someways but I could do much better at it.

DH started working from home at start of lockdown, he's now doing a mix. He used to leave for work around 7am, so at that time he starts work. If he's in the office, even though he's entitled, it's hard to take breaks and he's lucky if he can eat his sandwich and fruit. Being at home with no travel gives him the chance to relax a bit, so he breaks off for coffee with me at 10am and gives himself 30 mins for lunch (meetings/appointments permitting). Most of the time he can finish at 5pm as he started earlier.

I tend to do longer hours than contracted WFH, they have crept up unintentionally so am actively being more strict with start/finish times and lunch break.
Nature of role is often need to be reactive to things that happen so need to be flexible with start/finish times. Employer good at making sure time is taken back.
Usually up walking dog by 7, breakfast at 8, shower and at desk by 8:30 or 9 unless there's an early meeting.
Work through to 5 or 6 with 30mins for lunch or an hour if I walk the dog, plus a couple of short breaks to make a drink or stretch legs between meetings.
Longer hours were necessary at the start of the pandemic just to get the job done but now, seeing as WFH looks permanent for us, I need to regulate things more effectively.

I start about an hour earlier than I would if I was in the office and then take half an hour out for the school run.

Make a coffee and put a washing on/do breakfast dishes when I get back and then back at my desk til lunchtime unless I'm taking 10 mins to hang the washing out.

Half hour lunch break and then either work through til dcs get home from school or occasionally take another half hour to pick up. 15 minute break to get dcs a snack and catch up and then back at my desk til around 5.30.

Comparing it to the days I'm in the office I'd say I generally work longer but am more productive in the chunks I'm working plus hugely appreciative of the flexibility.

I now have meetings virtually all day (so much of my job is ad-hoc conversations, which are now all meetings) so I don't get much choice other than to work my normal hours - or more likely much longer hours because what would be a 5 minute chat in the office can easily take an hour to sort remotely. I go for a 25 minute walk at lunchtime for a break. I don't have the time during the day to do anything other than very quick things like unloading the dishwasher.

When DD is at school I also have to break off to either take her or collect her from school and then go back to work, which I find distracting as I'd rather keep family and work separate. This will hopefully be better in September as the school is abandoning staggered starts (so I can take her to school and then start work) and also allowing students to stay in school after the end of the school day (due to Covid they didn't allow this last year), so she can stay in school until I'm ready to pick her up.

Mine is structured for me so I have allocated breaks and lunch and work set hours
Basically log on at 8.30am, take my breaks and lunch as allocated, log off at 5pm and that's about it!

I worked from home during the first and last (long) lockdown until I had my first vaccine. Never done it before.

I stuck to my normal routine including hair and make up and usual work clothes. My friends and colleagues laughed at me, especially as I didn't have any video calls but I needed some sense of normality.

Unlike in the office I did actually take fag and tea breaks and first time round spent my lunch hour in the garden which was lovely.

During the winter lockdown (which I HATED - it was very lonely), I did dress more casually because my house was colder than the office so it was leggings and jumpers and Uggs etc.

I hope never to do it again but I have a spare set of equipment at home as insurance against it.

As soon as the kids are off to school 8:30, I get to work, break when meetings allow for 15 min lunch, 10in chat with DS when he returns from school if I can, then I and keep going until my husband is home with DD about 5:30pm. 10 min chat with DH about his day then back to work and stop when he tells me dinner is ready about 7pm. This is broken up with occasional breaks to put laundry on, or take or collect DS to/from his sports clubs which are 20min round trips 2-3 days a week and I shuffle meetings around or send him in a taxi if I can't. I am shattered. On days I need to go to the office, I don't get there til after 9 and I leave about 6:30pm . Expectation will be I do 2 days a week in the office but averaging only 3 a month at the moment. Work averages 50+ hrs a week and that is fast paced work in between many calls and emails.

I can't do 100% of my work from home. I'm CEV so have worked at home throughout.

I log in at 7.30am do some emails and back to bed with a coffee. Up again at 9am which is when meetings start moat days. Work until the work dries up. Have lunch at the computer looking for work others have done and check their work. I call into work several times a day. Maybe more meetings.

Will work evenings and weekends if needed.

I don't have set work. It will sometimes very busy and I'll do extra hours. Sometime slower so do less hours.

I like to start early which I couldn't really do when in the office. I am much more productive in the morning and before lunch so try to do a longer morning and shorter afternoon on that basis.

My lunch is mostly half an hour, although sometimes I end up taking a longer lunch and struggling to get back into work so then have to work later and the earlier start hasn't really got me the early finish I had hoped for! More often than not I just have the half an hour lunch though and that's fine.

I think one day a week in the office would be ample and the rest at home. I think I need to start being better at wearing proper clothes rather than loungewear as feel a bit of a slob at times which isn't conducive to productivity.

When the kids were at school I’d walk dd to school and walk a bit further - to get 20mins walk done. Work 9-12.30, lunch 12.30-1.45/2 (including 30min work out, food and a break), work 2-3.15, break 3.15-3.30, work 3.30-6.30ish. I prefer having a long lunch and working later, as I peak in the afternoon.

Moving forward I’ll only be going into the office to “collaborate”, maybe once a month. It’ll be better for my work/life balance, my kids are now both secondary age so can sort their self out, but I’ll be here to deal with any dramas they might encounter.