To ask HOW do people find the time to do things when they work full time?

[latesummerearlyautumn2]

I work full time, majority from home, and just about manage to keep on top of housework, life/home maintenance on top of that.

I walk every lunch break and after work to do 10k steps a day, but after that I have dinner, shower, may call a relative for a quick chat, and then before I know it, it’s time for bed.

Weekends are usually spent doing essential things like food shopping, laundry, house and garden stuff.

I don’t even have kids and marvel at people who have the time to maintain good social lives in particular. I find it hard enough staying connected with family members. My sister for example is always out with various friends, on holiday, or a trip away etc and I wonder if these people ever sleep?

I can’t be the only one with a boring life, am I?

I’m not sure if this is helpful, but I have so much less housework since I properly decluttered marie kondo style. House isn’t a showhouse. But I can usually make it look acceptable with about 10/15 mins of effort a day.

Its amazing what you can fit in when you don’t have a choice! I did professional exams with a toddler as a single parent working full time. And people ask me how I did it. And I sort of think well it was hard but I didn’t have a choice. I had to do my coursework and feed my child etc. So you just find a way if you have to. Probably not the most calm way to live though! I was definitely very stressed!

Weekends are usually spent doing essential things like food shopping, laundry, house and garden stuff.

There are two days in a weekend.

How does this take up all of it, especially with no kids disturbing you?

Even the shopping can be done online so you've only got to take your order from the driver and put it away.

It does seem surprising to me that these tasks take up the whole weekend. Can you pinpoint why? Is your property especially hard to maintain or are you the kind of person who procrastinates and gets distracted?

I've often wondered this. I used to work with someone who went away most weekends. I'm not sure how he afforded it or had the energy. He didn't earn much more than me yet he owned a brand new camper van, lived in a new build and went abroad twice a year as well as the weekends away. For me, it's affordability more than anything. Other people in work used to question his lifestyle too. Just how???

That aside, I'm guessing people plan on a Monday what they'll be doing at the weekend. That's how my ex boyfriend rolled anyway. I couldn't keep up with him. We'd be at the beach all day on a Saturday and 10 o'clock in the evening we'd be boiling eggs and making sandwiches for the next adventure on Sunday. I was exhausted. Needless to say, the relationship didn't last.

Groceries delivered every week, anti bacterial wipes for quick bathroom cleans, a robot hoover, a gardener once a month?

I have 3 kids and work almost full time from home. It's a constant juggle of work, shopping, housework, laundry, and kids clubs at the moment. Unfortunately I'm not managing that well as I have ADHD with poor executive function. An extra stress is that im not great with money so I have to expend extra stress managing bills and shopping money.

I am creating a burnout recovery spreadsheet where I reduce demand as much as possible so a couple of ideas I have:

Switching to Gousto/Hello fresh for dinners and having set meal types on other days e.g. Pasta Night to reduce stress of meal planning

Bulk buying things like toiletries, cleaning, pet, household products once monthly online so I dont have to pick them up in the shops and can even get them on a recurring order

Decluttering as much as possible so housework is easier

Roomba, cleaner if you can afford for occasional deep cleans.

In your case I would be auditing what you do in your hours between work finish and bed time to figure out what you can save. Can you get a walking pad for your desk so you get your steps in and use your break to have a nice bath or shower so you are ticking another daily thing off your list and doing some self care.

My ADHD brain hates monotony too so I would be doing what I can to just switch things up a bit instead if doing the same thing every day.

I think you’re prioritising daily exercise (which is great) so that’s taking up a good portion of your daily free time. What do you do before work?

I’m also a bit surprised how much of your weekend that routine tasks take up. Do you have a particularly large house or garden?

If you don’t have kids, I can’t understand why you have no time for things. Before I had kids I worked full-time but had all mornings, evenings and weekends to do all the necessary stuff and the fun stuff in. I can only dream of those blissful times now 😫

if you finish work at 5? Go to bed at 11?
that’s 30 hours Monday to Friday ?? Surely that’s enough time to do stuff ?
You could get shopping delivered , probably 30 minutes to order it , same delivery every week with a few tweaks.
Clean a different room every day for 30 mins.
Washing your clothes , machine and on the line , 20 mins max ?

I have a cleaner but I have 3 dc, work full time, and 2 years ago did a post grad diploma over 2 years so there’s always time, you just have to prioritise. I did put on weight during the post grad studies. Before that I was running regularly and I’m trying to get back into that but motivation and this heat make it hard.

I’m not sure how you have no time either!
I work full time, 99% from home, do everything you do but also care for and ride 3 horses and do all the maintenance that comes with them and the land. Weekends I’m often out for the best part of a day competing or training.

1. online shopping, I do it on one of my lunch breaks and take a shorter walk
2. I do laundry on Fridays, I try to keep Fridays quieter meeting-wise, have it as a writing day. I do the washing throughout the day. Then sort the laundry mountain at the end of the day before the weekend begins
3. I have a cleaner.
4. I do dinner straight after work, clean the kitchen and am sat down (or go out) by 7pm latest.
5. the only regular chores on weekends are bed changing, cooking, and the bins.

Shopping delivered - 10 mins to unpack then it’s done - game changer.
Getting up early - 5.30 alarm during the week, laundry on straight away, take a 15 min screen break in my day to get the meal prepped for that evening.

Analyses your time usage

food shopping laundry and most housework - allow an hour a day and that will free up your weekend

Good grief - no commute either !

work from 8:30 to 5:30

cooked and relative call done by 7 you say quick chat
hour for house and life jobs, chill from 8 and bed at 10

on the evening you do food shopping it might take a little more but you can still chill from 9

OP I work from home, get in an average 12k steps per day (according to Fitbit), 5 classes a week, older teens. What on earth are you filling your time with?
I walk to a local supermarket before work if I need something on top of my mid week delivery. I do more shopping at the weekend (starving teens). I keep the washing up to date (put on a timer so I can hang out before logging on). I save cleaning for the weekend but it doesn’t take long?

I’m also childfree and WFH most of the week, and your schedule sounds nothing like mine.
Do weekends really need to be spent doing house and laundry and garden stuff? Is your house too big for your needs, would downsizing to somewhere more manageable help?

I do laundry during the day when I’m WFH: put a load on first thing before I start work, time a ten minute break mid morning to hang it out. Have a robot vacuum cleaner and clear surfaces so no clutter to clean around, it just does its thing overnight. Clean other stuff as I go. I go for a run on my lunch break and do a route which ends at the supermarket, so pick up any groceries I need for the day then. Leaves evenings and weekends completely free for social stuff. I wake up early and see friends for either yoga or the gym most mornings before work, also; is that sort of thing a possibility for you?

How long is a quick chat? To me that is ten minutes max.

I can’t see how you are spending so much time on chores etc.

2 dc
full time job (both of us)
kids clubs
house is always tidy, garden always looking well
appointments attended etc etc
fun had - dinners out, dates, family visits etc
I don’t feel overwhelmed, I don’t get the hype (I appreciate that’s just me)

I just get things done. And yes…I spend plenty of time reading, watching tv etc too.

I schedule stuff in. I book my gym classes on Monday morning and that's sacred time - nothing will unseat those plans. If I go to the gym in work time, I book it in as meetings.

Why do you call a relative for a chat every night? That sounds exhausting. Take this time back.

Also, walking 10k steps a day sounds boring and time consuming. You could use this time to do a different physical activity that feels more like you're doing something rather than just walking around.

Some people can afford to pay a cleaner to come over 1-2 x a week, some also pay someone to do their laundry. We don’t but we do pay for a gardener to come once a month because we hate gardening and ours is quite high maintenance. But yeah, paid help can go a long way.

There’s also only so many hours in the day but some people waste a lot of it procrastinating/ doing very little. I don’t watch TV much for example, I’d rather read so that’s how I’ve got through 46 books this year already for example. I fit exercise in either before or after work, the uni I work at also has a gym so sometimes I’ll go do a run between lectures or something.

It’s busy and I’m tired most of the time but that’s how I do it with 5 DC as well.

I find the busier people are the more they do. I work full time not from home, lone parent 2 children and I can still manage to get them to clubs, homework and keep the house tidy. While I work with a woman who only works 12 hours a week and she has a husband and mother doing childcare and she tells me all the time shes so busy. She never sat down till 8.30 last night. Then I have another friend who is a sahm children aged 11 and 14 and a husband. Who tells me shes rushed off her feet all day. Never gets a minute to herself. She hasnt worked since she was pregnant with first born. So I think if you are busy you just get on with it but people who have loads of time stretch out activities or just do it at a really slow pace not realising.

How many hours is ft? I work 42 pw plus half an hour commute each way and find it a struggle. I don’t make best use of the evening though, I’m too tired. We only survive because DH is part time, so covers a lot if shopping / cooking/housework/laundry. Two teenage boys who do a bit but definitely create more work than they contribute. Weekends I’ll usually do half a day housework, half a day market shopping and cooking something fancy (which I enjoy).

i think if you want to do other stuff, you have to prioritise it - no one has endless time and it’s too easy to get bogged down in the mindless domestic tasks on repeat. Making an appointment and getting it in the diary - whether it’s a one off meet up with friends or a regular hobby meet - is a good way to make sure you don’t just do the boring stuff all the time. I actively schedule meet-ups with friends, sometimes weeks in advance, just to make sure they happen.

I think it’s like cutting cloth in the financial sense. I look back now to my early parental years, I used to do a 90 mile round trip 5 days a week, toddlers, while studying. I look back now and think HOW, it was just my normal. Like when retired people tell you how busy they are, I don’t think they’re lying, I just think their life has changed and this is their new normal, by their current standards, they are busy. I guess it’s the same if you don’t have kids or whatever else is a time suck!

It’s more baffling to me how you don’t have lots of time for fun if you work from home and don’t have children or other caring responsibilities. Prioritise what you want to do, and the less important stuff needs to fit around it — for me (outside of DH and DC) that’s work, seeing friends, art, spending time in nature, opera, volunteering. No one ever lay on their deathbed and wished they’d spent more time dusting the skirting boards!

Prioritising and using my time effectively.

I get up early and make the most of mornings - when DDs have school and I'm WFH, I can have walked the dogs, showered, made breakfast and already checked work emails etc before 7am. If I'm going into the office, I walk the dogs the 3 miles (45 minutes) to the station and then a relative picks them up and takes them home and then said relative drops the dogs off at the station at the end of the day and I walk them back home again.

I food shop three times a week and it takes about 15 minutes each time as it's an in/out job, I have a 'room a day' I clean, DDs help with washing/ironing/cleaning etc. None of it is wonder woman stuff, it's just about being efficient and using time well. We still have plenty of time for lunches and dinners out, day trips, 3x dog walks a day on the weekend. House is clean (as clean as it can be with five big dogs).

Honestly, I don't understand how a walk after work, have a quick call, dinner and a shower can equal time for bed when you WFH unless you're going to sleep at 7pm.