Time management at work

[HappyChappy56]

I have just returned to work part time after a career break with the kiddos.

I work from home and have chosen to work part time to fit in housework, errands etc.

I was just wondering how much of the following activities would be deemed reasonable to do in working time. It all seemed clearer when I was working full time, but it's been a while since I have had to manage my time, certainly with so many other things to juggle.

Things I feel are a grey area but maybe IABU:

Meditation
Reading personal development books
Reading books on my industry
Offloading to a friend/journal
Planning the day/week/month (which involves thinking around my personal time / upcoming hols etc)
Calls with a mentor
Brief bouts of exercise

To me, these are not 'work' in the sense of being sat at my desk and producing output, but help me work better. Should I be reducing my hours to fit them in or doing them in work time?

Things I think are more clearly personal time activities, but maybe other people would weave them into a work day without giving themselves wrinkles over it:

Laundry
Making lunch (already prepped, just needs cooking)
Popping to the post office
Putting grocery delivery away
Asking Mumsnet for time management tips
Longer bouts of exercise

I am trying to ascertain if I am stressing too much about whether I have signed up for the right number of hours. Should I be:
a. Thinking far less about it and just getting on with things
b. Reducing my hours
c. Getting some help for time management

What are your productive 'at the desk' hours vs your 'I am letting my brain assimilate' hours?

Thanks MNers!

And we wonder why so many people think home workers are just dossing most of the time.

I wfh but I’m measured on my output, so yes I do put the washing on, I’ll make an omelette for lunch (which I couldn’t in the office) I will pop out for short local errands when I’m in a down period and my boss is fully aware of it, I’m encouraged to manage my own time appropriately. However, I will also work long days without a break when it’s a busy period and finish late as it’s not like the office is getting locked up. I think it depends on what
the job is and what expectations are of you and how your performance is measured.

Where I work we don't have this everyday, but everyone is allowed to take one power hour/week. It's great.

Calls with a mentor.
The rest is totally taking the piss to do in work time.

I would try to ensure I have a shag break.
Loads of people have office affairs.

This.

It's fine to take the odd couple of mins break regularly - make a cup of tea, nip to the loo, feed the cat, text a friend. But more than that and you are on shaky ground. Already those 5 minutes each hour = more than half an hour non-work time per day, and you'll still take a lunch break. I think any more is really pushing it. Of course the great benefit to WFH is the flexibility but it works both ways. Take too much and we'll all be forced back to offices and I for one really, really don't want that so I make sure to give WFH a good name!

This is one of the weirdest threads I've ever seen on MN. 90% of your list is not 'grey area'. It's a flat out no. I'm really surprised you need to ask if most of these things are appropriate to do on company time. The only ones are heating/eating your lunch and speaking with your mentor. Do exercise in your lunch break if you like but absolutely not on company time. You're paid to work not exercise/nip to the post office/meditate. Bizarre.

I get that, but when we were in the office working full time we did these things all the time. The post office would be closed before/after work so we went during. People played football during work hours with colleagues.

Planning
Calls with mentor
MAYBE reading industry books.

The rest of your list is a complete piss take, it gives home workers a bad name.

We’re being dragged back into doing 3 days in the office because of people taking the pee with WFH and it’s really annoyed me because some can’t be responsible adults the company has now adopted a one size fits all no exceptions policy despite many of us working very productively from home for over 4 years now

Thanks this makes the most sense. A lot of the things I listed would take 5 mins, eg a 5 mins breathing meditation. But a lot would take longer. I guess I'm trying to get a sense of how people balance their days...outside work hours I have my DCs and when I was working before DCs we basically worked really long hours weaving all this into our day to keep ourselves well enough to sustain those hours.

🤣 I'll put it to my DP

Honestly, OP, it sounds like you're a bit of a pisstaker.

Yes, there is downtime during a typical office day, but a lot of that will be spent chatting to colleagues etc, which is effectively a way of building team relationships. If you were constantly running other personal errands during your working hours before mat leave, then I'd say that you were taking the piss back then as well.

Whether you will get away with it or not will depend a bit on how efficient you are when you're working. I'm not interested in micromanaging staff and I don't clockwatch at all. If they manage to fit a whole lot of other stuff into the day but still get the work done to an acceptable standard, then I honestly couldn't care less if they're doing their batch cooking in work time. However, I can check what they've been doing quite easily if their performance isn't up to scratch, and I've had to do a couple of disciplinaries with people recently where the evidence shows quite clearly that they have been off doing something else.

I'm really not trying to be a pisstaker.

Would you be comfortable asking your manager if you can do all of the things that you listed in your OP during work time? Or would you think it was inappropriate to ask?

If you don't think it's a pisstake, then just ask. If you don't feel comfortable asking because you're not sure that your line manager would approve, then there's your answer!

I would ask what percentage of my time should be chargeable time vs thinking /development time, yes. (And I actually have this as a specific target so that was a useful consideration!)

Specifically how that thinking time looks would vary from person to person so one person might sit with pen and paper, another may go for a walk, another may call a colleague. I don't think she'd appreciate micromanaging that aspect unless I was feeling stuck for ideas.

What surprises me about all the answers that imply you should be sat at your desk 9-5 apart from the odd 5 mins to make some tea and 30 mins to eat lunch, is that it doesn't optimise all my reading and research on how the human body actually works. I am really surprised that people can be sat at a computer for that length of time and be productive. I wish I could!

Tbf there was a study that found that the average worker in an office only did about 2h of actual work in a 9-5 day. Which is quite shocking!

So just ask that question then. As long as you're recording the expected amount of chargeable time and delivering on expected outputs/outcomes/quality standards etc, they probably won't care.

Your post has given me a right laugh. I’ll ask my boss tomorrow if he’s happy if I do meditation, catch up with a friend over the phone and do a light jog during the hours he pays me for.

I think you need to get back down to reality OP, your heads gone a bit since having the kids

Well actually everyone does work basically from 9 to 5 with just grabbing a quick lunch.

That's normal working practice.

Have you been out of the workplace for a long time? Work has definitely become more intense in general over the last decade.

I think you just need to think about how many hours you are paid to work, and then work them. So it absolutely would be OK to pop to the post office during the day but say it takes 40 minutes you would then need to work 40 minutes longer that day

I’m surprised at the comments on meditation.

My employer paid for all staff to have access to Headspace app and encourages us to use it every day in work time.

But this was during your lunch period, surely?

Meditation- ok if someone or something at work has upset you and this is how you get back on an even keel. Otherwise no.
Reading personal development books- ok if you have no real work to do
Reading books on my industry- ok
Offloading to a friend/journal- ok if the friend is a colleague
Planning the day/week/month (which involves thinking around my personal time / upcoming hols etc)- ok
Calls with a mentor- ok
Brief bouts of exercise- not ok
Laundry- ok
Making lunch (already prepped, just needs cooking)- ok
Popping to the post office- ok if you aren’t busy
Putting grocery delivery away- not really ok
Asking Mumsnet for time management tips- lol
Longer bouts of exercise- no

Its threads like this that make me happy that I'm a contractor and can bill for increments of 1/4 day. I do any / all of those but either (if I have flow / am feeling super productive or have a deadline so need to knucle down) work late or start early tor (if not) write of a % of the day as 'non working time. That way I don't need to feel guilty

Post office we usually mid-late afternoon as during lunch the queue would be out the door and round the corner. Football was during lunch but they'd play for 1.5 hrs including travel, then shower, then eat, then back to work, so much longer than the usual lunch.
Our employer figured that if we spent our lunch time eating lunch, and then 15 mins later popping out to the post office, we'd be happier/more productive than if we spent the entire break in a queue.