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!

But this is what permits the opportunities of abusing WFH and epitomises the unfairness of it

Working contracted hours for which you are paid? Surely that is cenral to the fairness of this

Bloody hell! 4 hour day at work and you want to spend most of it doing errands and dancing!! You're an absolute joker! When do you think people who work full time get chance to do those things? Not in works time that's for sure.
Why did you bother posting? You've got an answer for everything and clearly think your time is more valuable than anyone else's. Just do what you want. Don't expect your colleagues to pick up the slack though.

I think the PP who said would you do it in the office hit the nail on the head. I do get exercise at work, my office is huge and it’s a 5 minute walk including 3 flights of stairs to the canteen for a coffee, which I usually do 2 times a day, and for lunch, so that’s short exercise. When WFH I make hot drinks and walk round the garden instead. But other than that it’s generally no. I put a wash on before work, and hang up to dry at lunch. I usually tidy up at lunch too, or perhaps a short walk or 30 minutes gardening, it’s nice to get some fresh air. I did go to the garage to pick up the car in work hours this week, but I let my manager know this, did the trip in a slot with no meetings and started work early that day so I completed my contracted hours as usual. And if I’ve had a stressful call, which happens a few times a month, I do take 20 minutes to myself afterwards, but then I do that in the office too, though often there I have colleagues to destress / discuss the call with!

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

I wouldn't expect to any of these in paid work time.

No, you've misunderstood. I work 4 hours a day because I have the other stuff to do and acknowledge I need time to decompress before school pick up, so I've chosen to work the number of hours I feel I can be on the job. I'm at my desk and productive for all 4 hours. My question was whether I'm being over-cautious with the number of hours I've signed up for, in that if I was working full time would I be using some of those full time hours to decompress anyway. Like I say, when I was in the office people would be running errands, playing games, going to football, so in my industry seeing people decompress during work hours was not unusual. Probably out of an 8 hour day then majority of people would spend 1.5 hours on a break (one hour lunch plus 0.5 hours of other breaks spread through the day)...and sometimes more playing games/football/etc. So what I was trying to work out was whether if, say, I work 5 hours a day but am not literally doing 5 hours of work, is that fair. Eg if 30 mins of that is lunch.

Surely you’d set your hours according to how much money you want/need and plan everything else around that? Perhaps with an eye on whether working more hours would aid career progression.

But why is it an abuse if I'm getting my job done? It's about managing your time as an adult and responsible employee. If I know I've got a big deadline then yeah I'm not fannying about at the post office, but if work is quiet (my industry has peaks of activity and then big troughs of quiet time) then why does it matter if I've done a 30 min meditation? My company hasn't lost out on anything, because when it came to crunch time I worked until the job was done.

Obviously different roles have different flows - if I was in customer service I could reasonably expect I would be answering calls/emails for the entire time I was at work. But that's not the nature of my role, so I don't see flexing my time around my output to be an abuse of wfh.

I wouldn't get away with any of that. I'm working from home while I'm recovering from surgery. I chose to do this rather than go onto half pay. I have to account for every minute of my day and my kettle etc is in my work room. I only leave it to go go to the loo.

Yes this is how I feel. As a manager I would prefer it if my employees looked after themselves and their other commitments on downtimes so that they had the energy and enthusiasm to carry on during peaks, rather than trying to fill the time with "work work" but then not having the energy to get us through a peak.

This is a good point. As I was a SAHP until recently it all seems like bonus money but if we sit down and plan what we want to do with it and when it might give me more clarity.

"So what I was trying to work out was whether if, say, I work 5 hours a day but am not literally doing 5 hours of work, is that fair. Eg if 30 mins of that is lunch."

I'd say that if you're paid for 5 hours and WFH then the 5 shouldn't include lunch. Basically that's my situation. Six hours, paid by the hour (but permanent part time), WFH. And I don't include lunchtime in my working hours. Or any laundry / PO visits etc I might need/want to do.

I do make cups of tea or get a snack, go to the loo, chat to the cats if they wander in, stretch or stare out the window to rest my eyes, in work time.

When I was full time (different employer) it was the usual 9-5, an 8 hour day but expected 7.5h work and 30m lunch which i think is typical.

Amazing 😁

R u working for the amount of contracted hours that u r paid for? Key question!
Regardless of how quick,efficient productive, meet targets etc, there is always more to do in my 24/7 industry. Emphasises the inequality of wfh which is clearly 'abused '.

There is inequality between different jobs, though, inevitably. Beyond a certain level in many roles you are being paid for your expertise and your ideas, not time served. And somebody who is good at their job can easily achieve more in six hours than someone less good can in 8.

My lunch break isn't paid, so I can do whatever the hell I like, as long as it not illegal. I ate some salad, went to the corner shop and started cleaning the bathroom.

I think a lot depends on the culture at your workplace. My previous workplace was pretty flexible- you had to attend meetings and meet deadlines, and peneeded to know roughly if you were available, but otherwise it's up to you. If you wanted to start early to finish early or late and late, it was usually okay. Meditation and exercise was encouraged if you do it as well as your work, but not instead of - so someone might go to the gym at 10:30, but then they'd be working till 18:30. But I worked in an international 24/7 environment- if you're in a customer facing role, that might not be possible (and you probably don't have to cover on-call or do maintenance starting at 2am, so swings and roundabouts.) We had mentoring programmes and various personal development opportunities, too, mostly in work time.

Doing non-work stuff may not mean not working- I have sometimes had a good idea about what to look at next for a sticky work problem while doing something like sorting laundry. Sometimes, you need a break from your screen, and your brain will tick away in the background while you're doing something entirely different, not focusing on the work you were stuck on.

People can take the piss when they're 100% office-based, too. Or just be crap at time management. <looks pointedly at current linemanager>

Good answer, I'm not convinced.
I have been employed for my skills and expertise in a senior role and still served my contracted hours.

I’m definitely employed for skills and knowledge. But my contracted hours are full! There’s the actual tasks that I need to complete, mentoring junior staff, keeping up with cutting edge thinking, building relationships…

I work full time hours, half of the week from home, and the only one of your activities I would definitely do in working time is a call with a mentor.

Reading books on my industry, perhaps in work time if it was for a specific purpose, like part of professional training. But if just for general interest I'd read in my own time.

Offloading to a friend, again, perhaps in work time if the friend was a colleague.

Planning, I would only plan work in work time. This may involve factoring in personal plans if, for example, I needed to plan to work in one location or another, or work particular hours, because of personal plans.

Everything else, I would do in my own time.

If I'd reduced my hours to part time I'd be more focused on making sure I could get everything done that I needed to do.