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 do all these things and have a senior job, honestly it’s not difficult. Main thing I outsource is cleaning. But WFH is a godsend, it’s that that keeps me sane and able to balance everything, especially ensuring I have the energy levels to do all the extra stuff like kids activities, exercise etc! When I worked out the office it was my own self care that was dropped.

I think there is a certain amount of sustainable chaos in most households. Some weeks I let my laundry slide, another week I might let my dc’s reading slide but over a month the household generally has a good enough balance.

I think everyone prioritises different things. I generally prioritise yoga and days out. But for other people it might be dog walking or video games or reading. I think it is very common to struggle with time management though. Even retired people complain there’s not enough time IME.

I think jobs often expand to fill the time you have - so if you only work part-time and have (say) two child-free days off a week then your jobs will expand to fit those two days. If you don’t have any child-free days then you have no choice but to make everything fit in the time you do have.

Sorry OP I don't recognise this. Struggling to have time for friends because of housework for one person? Spending the whole weekend doing a food shop and laundry for one? That's like two loads, probably one because you don't have laundry generating hobbies like gym or a work uniform. Order shopping online, you can be done by 10am Saturday.

For one, if you're out of the house seeing friends or on holiday, you don't generate much housework. Don't need to food shop and cook if you're going out for dinner, don't need to tidy if you haven't even been there.

Tasks expand to fill time. There's a reason for the saying "if you want something done, ask a busy person".

Actually doing and achieving lots isn't the cause of burnout - burnout comes from feeling overwhelmed (even if objectively the individual doesn't have much to do) and from lack of agency/ control over how and when things are done.

@shoesandshipsandsealingwaxmaybe, I definitely had more free time pre dc even though I worked more hours. I also find there are more demands on my time now from ageing parents.

Do laundry Thursday and Friday (while WFH).
Grocery delivery Friday afternoon or Saturday am.
Cleaner or 15 mins a day.
Ditto garden.
You can garden/clean while talking on the phone!

I don't understand where your time goes OP!

I worked with a long commute, and had small kids and still made sure I socialised and kept in touch with friends. All that stuff you list doesn't take that long surely!

If you WFH why don't you put washing on during your working day?
Having a cleaner if you can afford it is a great time saver.

You need to get faster at the household stuff. Blitz the housework for a couple of hours once a week then keep on top of it, wipe the kitchen down after you set the dishwasher off every night, give the sink/toilet a quick wipe a couple of times a week. If it's only adults in the house it can't get that messy. I had so much free time pre DS and I worked full time out of the house (still do).

I sometimes wonder whether some Mners think that laundry involves actually standing over the washing machine for the entire cycle, supervising. Only then, surely, could it take up as much time as some posters claim it does in their lives.

Kindly it sounds like you must be a faffer because you should have loads of time 🤣 if you work from home you have 10 slots a week to do stuff. 2 hours before work and 3/4 hours after. Food shop go before work one day, clean for 30mins a day on your lunch break. If you physically can, swap a few walks for runs and/or go for a big hike at the weekend and skip a day in the week. I've got horses so I go to the stables every morning and ride 2x weekdays, then do some house jobs at lunch and eat my lunch while working. Then a typical week for me could be run then see my boyfriend on a Monday night, climbing with friends on a Tues, rest on weds, socialising on Thurs as that's my office day and see my boyfriend Friday. Then at the weekend I don't really do chores other than dishes and spend it either out with the horses or seeing friends and family.

You just make it fit, DH and I both do 5 in 4 and 95% work outside of the home I have had 1 WFH day in the last 6 weeks. DH goes to the gym very early, I go on a Sunday morning, a Monday which is my nwd and on a Wednesday night about 9pm after my 12 hour work day. I cook from scratch every day unless we're having pre batch cooked stuff (I just make extra if I'm coming something that will freeze) we had tuna nicoise salad last night (things steaks on offer), delicious and ds loves it, we have lamb steaks and roasted veg couscous with homemade tzatziki tonight. It doesn't need to be complicated food. Ds does cricket, gymnastics, swimming and dodgeball so in the times I am waiting to collect I do life admin. We eat dinner together at least 5 nights a week. We're out with friends and their children for a BBQ/garden party tonight (we will eat first as it doesn't start until 7 and ds eats earlier and last time we went there was no food until nearly 9), we have family visiting tomorrow and then we're off on holiday Sunday, and the packing is pretty much done and has been since Monday. You just have to be organised

You prioritise. I walk/cycle everywhere and don't have a car, but live v close to the city centre, so I don't waste time getting to places to see people/go to gigs/films/bars etc and I get my exercise as part of my daily life rather than having to do gym classes. We often have people over as well, and as lots of friends are in other countries, they come and stay. Cooking doesn't have to take forever. It's perfectly possible to make good meals quickly, and have extra helpings of previous things in the freezer if short on time. (This time of year it's main salads, so v fast.) We have a weekly cleaner who also irons. And I'm not one of those parents whose child has a ridiculous weekly schedule of far-flung weekly activities, because my priorities matter too, and I don't choose to spend large numbers of my evenings trekking about dropping and collecting. It would no more occur to me to not go out with friends, or have them round for dinner for the sake of a DC's homework schedule or housework than it would to fly.

Key is not having more children than you can handle easily, and deciding what your priorities are. Fit everything else in the space that's left.

ETA: Oh, and another thing that frees up time -- I almost never watch TV, never joined FB or Twitter/X, and very seldom check social media. I read a huge amount.

I have a child and work full time, always onsite can’t do my job from home. Don’t have the money to outsource stuff and I do most of school runs.
My answer is I don’t sleep as much as i should , and rarely watch tv.
I can just about manage everything else. Kids stuff, exercise, friends. I can be pretty fast when i want to be and don’t tend to sit down till 11pm 😆

I’m not sure what the question is. My husband and I work FT and have one kid. We do all the stuff you mention except we do have a cleaner once a week, mainly for bathrooms and floors as we have pets who shed constantly. We also socialise regularly and play sports, it just sort of fits in and we do laundry and house stuff as needed. I meal prep on Sundays which helps a lot during the following week. 🤷‍♀️

It interesting, as both my partner and I work full time with no children and manage to have most weekends to do our own thing. I think the reason for this is because we’re quite organised. We tend to put washing on first thing and then either my partner will hang it up on his lunch (or I will if I’m off) - we generate 3 loads of washing a week, so its no biggy and we put it away before we go to bed. Our shopping is done online, and we tend to batch cook at the weekend or make quick dishes in the week to save time/ energy. We also both have a job to do every evening in the week, so we don’t have to spend big chunks of time cleaning. My job tonight is cleaning the bathroom, my partner will hoover downstairs.. we could leave it all until the weekend, but Id rather spend time together doing something! Plus, it works out at 45 mins/1 hour a night!

Some make it sound as though they're carrying it 30 miles to a river and beating it against stones.

I go at 9.30am Sunday for my food shop. Back in the car by 10.10am and it’s all done

I outsource a lot.
Cleaner 4 hours a week, windowcleaner and bin cleaning company monthly, oven cleaner twice a year, food delivery weekly, probably more but those are what I can think off of the top of my head.
dh and I both work full time and have 3 now nearly all adult dc (one is at uni but home a lot now, the other 2 live here full time).
We both maintain friendships and a social life outside of the home, together and separately, teen has a lot of sports commitments which take up time both during the week and weekends, keep in touch with family and see them regularly (helpful that most of them live locally) and have time for ourselves too.
i finish work and am pretty much done and home by 5 (4:15 on my wfh days), there’s almost an entire extra day I can cram into my evenings!

Yes!

Some day I will get a Kindle version of Judith Flanders' brilliant The Victorian House and cut and paste in her chapter on laundry, back when middle-class women's clothing in particular involved different fabrics that to be treated and laundered separately, so that you had to unpick bodices from skirts, or remove collars and cuffs etc before washing each with different groups of fabric in water you/your servant had had to draw from a cold tap and heat in a copper, then scrub, then wring/mangle, then dry and/or starch and iron without electricity.

I think the work we do expands to fill the time we have to do it. Pre-kids I thought I was busy, and to a degree I was between work, studying and household tasks. But I’d take my time doing things, put things off and generally be a bit perfectionist about it. Now with 2 teens and a busy job, albeit 4 days a week, I’m constantly chasing my tail. It all gets done and as the kids have grown I have more free time. In times when I’m childfree I don’t know how to fill the time because everything is done more quickly.

Theres no point in wondering why it all takes you so long, you’re in a routine that doesn’t need to adjust to other people so unless you decide to change things, there’s no reason to. I’d look at where you spend most of your free time, are you doing things because you’ve always done it that way, are there quicker ways to get through the drudgery to give time for more enjoyable things.

I've just had another thought, I used to find cleaning the bathrooms really time consuming. Someone told me to spread it over the week and do it whilst you're waiting for other things ie cleaning the sink whilst the bath runs or whilst the kettle boils and this really helped. Also clean the shower while you're in it.

You say before you know it, it’s time for bed but assuming you have 5 hours after work that’s quite a long time. I also wfh but have two children and two dogs. Before work is breakfast, shower, getting the kids dressed etc and walking the dogs. Then school run which we also walk. I turn the washing machine on and might put the robot hoover down in the kitchen before starting work. I don’t really have a chance to step away from the desk during the working day but I do have a walking desk to get some steps in. After work I usually cook dinner straight away, especially in this weather when I’m not taking the dogs out til much later. We eat at 5:30/6 and 4 night a a week someone is out doing something- sport for child or parent, dog training etc. The other person does the washing up/tidying up, hangs the washing out and makes lunch for the next day. Puts the youngest to bed. This is usually done by 8 and then I might go for a run, follow a workout video for 30 minutes. Then walk the dogs, generally over to the allotment so I can water. Then sit down around 9 to watch a bit of TV with DH.

Weekends there isn’t that much house and garden stuff to do, maybe half a day especially if we are really clearing out a room. We tend to do something fun for another half a day or whole day and have some down time as well.

That’s just life for a lot of people though isn’t it? Work, house, garden…

I think you’re prioritising walking and chatting on the phone to the point where you have no time left. Walking is great but ‘low yield’ fitness wise and very time consuming. I’d look into doing more organised exercise that works on your while body in a shorter time. If you really love walking maybe join a local walking group and meet some new people.

I’d stop calling people to ‘catch up’ so much and look into an ‘in person’ class think about visiting or going out with close relatives once or twice a month and cut down on the phone calls?

You say you’re bored with life the way it is. What do you want to do specifically that you’re not doing?