WFH - do you ever just relax?

[ringoffiire]

I love working from home, and when I do, I will quite often do half a day's work and then put my feet up.

I do everything I need to do, and I do it to a good standard. My manager praises me and has no concerns at all about my work. I'm not behind at all.

But if I've done all my work, I simply leave Teams active so that I hear if anyone wants to contact me, and then I get on with whatever I want to do.

If I was in the office, I would still be sat there doing nothing, but just feeling frustrated that I had to look like I was busy until 5.

Right now I'm sipping a delicious beverage at 4pm and browsing mumsnet, because I've finished all my work.

Anyone else? And do you think it's OK?

My job just isn't like that - there's always something to be done or reading or thinking you could do. If one of my team was routinely running out of stuff to do, I would expect them to tell their manager that they had capacity and, in the meantime, to stick their hand up for corporate volunteering etc

Is there no other work to be done? I'd be worried they will work this out and restructure the role.

If you are asking for extra work and not being given it and everyone else is similarly quiet then what else can you do?

Depends ... as a pp said, peaks and troughs so its lovely when you are WFH as you can really enjoy the troughs)is that the right word?! ).

However long term it sounds like your organisation needs to examine its work allocation/task times as you are going to be expensive to keep employed at this rate !

I think for most people it depends purely on workload.

Is there any linked CPD you could do in this time OP? That way you can learn new skills and evidence you've still used time well.

Future Learn used to be excellent for free courses, many run affiliated with a university so looks good on your cv

Do you mind me asking what job you do OP? I can't imagine a job where you literally get everything done, sounds like a total dream.

It depends on the sort of work. Mine can also be peaks and troughs. Sometimes I’m working until 11pm, sometimes I have a chill day. I’m so much more productive at home and love that I can skip the commute, get things done and have time to relax.

When I’m in the office (usually for a meeting ), I find it takes the whole day. The commute is a pain, then people want to catch up about nothing in particular, then the meeting, then more catch up, then commute home. I find I have to spend the next day working overtime to catch up. So I definitely don’t begrudge the down time at home!

It’s a bit different if you’re a cleaner, teacher, security guard and you work is time and location dependent, but a lot of jobs are task dependent and in my company we don’t get overtime. Having a chill afternoon makes up for all the unpaid overtime!

Mine is like this some days, we work to external deadlines so have busy and quiet periods. I use the quieter days to do laundry, have a long walk etc. I focus quite intently at home so I get things done quicker

I have gone from WFH completely during Covid to now wfh 2 days a week. I love it and yes it can go quiet some days at home so I have no problem looking at shite online, listening to podcasts, doing the washing (actually my regular washing day has changed from Saturday to Friday (as I WFH) on Friday which frees up my weekend even more. Not sure I could go back to full time in the office again.

Same. I do the equivalent workload as all my other colleagues, in fact a little extra (confirmed at my last review) so whoever thinks I am wasting office hours can bugger off. I put systems in place to make sure all admin work is done in a record time, I happily shared my system with others and they are happy to continue using their old methods. So I have some free time in a day to get on with other things. At no point I intend to reduce my hours or ask for more work.

I'm so busy I don't really have that luxury. But I will use gaps in the day to put laundry on or load the washing machine. I work harder from home than in the office.

Ah the classic reward for doing your job well - to be given more work 😂

I WFH FT and while I’m often flat out busy, there’s always something to do to fill my day even when it’s not a particularly busy period. I do take my full lunch hour every day & almost always log off on time, though.

Unless I have paperwork with deadlines I’m doing my own thing

Yes and no. I work by billable hours. So if I have nothing to bill, I can’t work. That would be true in the office or out. In the event it happened in the office, I would often just go home. It was typically a workflow issue that meant I was going to be working a long day tomorrow, so I didn’t feel bad about taking some time for myself. At home, it’s less obvious, but I never have to pretend either way. If I’m not working, I’m not getting paid anyway.

Well to be fair, it's those people who get promoted so more work isn't their only reward. And it's not necessarily just about more work, it's often those folk who get the better opportunities/training and development stuff.

Are you me?

I might do some easy admin or play around with power bi or do some training but no, I never switch off and effectively stop working and I’d be surprised if any of the team I work with did either.

Exactly - people suggesting I put my hand up for more work/ volunteering - why on earth would I do this?

As I said, this job isn't my passion, it's my bill-paying job and the salary reflects that.

I've done what I'm required to do and I'm being praised for my great work. Why would I say I want more?

I spent enough years in my 20s working in a corporate environment to know that not every person who works hard is given those amazing opportunities. But there is never shortage of extra work for “the right candidate”.
Once I was even promoted without an increase in salary and was told that first I need to prove that I am capable of handling the additional responsibilities of the “new and exciting” role.

Yes OP. I'm purely WFH with occasional travel to the office before heading abroad for work, which is 4 times a year. I have days, like today, where I worked until 1pm and slowly switched off, got all my work done in the morning and it slowly eased off in the afternoon. I did a load of washing, had a 10 minute nap, walked the dog and dinner prepped. It's about work life balance. The height of summer is when things really get going and I sometimes work 10 hour days, and other times, such as today, I've only worked 5ish hours.
I try and enjoy it when it's really quiet because the periods when it's full steam ahead are brutal. It's like any job, going's up and down. Doesn't make us lazy, we just get to appreciate the time when it's quiet and best part of it all, we can get bits done at home!

@ProncessDiana yes I totally get it when you have the sort of small pauses in work. I have definitely had the very occasional day like that.

But I do think that's different from people who week in week out don't have enough to do not saying anything.