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How many hours of effective work do you do?


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Eternal Sunshine

I mean straight hours of work in a single work day. This is mostly for those that work 9-5 office jobs. Do you actually work all through that time?

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Most days I work every minute of my work day.

 

When I look at the clock on my computer and see I have 7 minutes left until I need to leave my office for another work task, I think about what I can complete in those 7 minutes. I eat lunch while working in my office.

 

At the end of the day or the beginning of the next day, I make a list of the all the stuff I didn't have time to get to so that I can start chipping away at my to-do list the next day.

 

I can take work home with me, but prefer not to so I try to get everything done at work. Sometimes it's not possible.

 

When I start to lose focus and I'm not getting as much work done as I should, I take a break or go home.

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Interesting question! I always wondered this, myself. :laugh: Many of my friends who work office jobs are constantly posting on FB during the day.

 

How many did you used to do in academia, ES? I probably average around 30 hours/week or so of completely focused work to be honest. Most of it happens in spurts during the night. :o

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I mean straight hours of work in a single work day. This is mostly for those that work 9-5 office jobs. Do you actually work all through that time?

Straight hours of work? Never.....I have self diagnosed ADD :D. I get all of my work done, but never in consecutive periods of.....minutes?

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pink_sugar

This highly depends on whether or not you have completed all tasks. Some days are slower than others. I usually surf the web during a break or after all my work has been done.

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It will sound bad but I probably work like 2/3 hours per day ( i have a Monday to Friday 9 to 530 job ) but i am just not busy.

I wish I could be busier though cause sometime i really don't know what to do... :rolleyes:

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Oh god....

 

At my last job id get about 9 hours a day in of real work.

 

 

This current job...I complete my work MUCH faster than the people I support can throw it at me. Im at work 8 to 430 but I'm only doing MAYBE 4 hours worth of work. I ask daily for more work. I do tasks I'm technically forbidden from doing just because I have idle hands.

 

So my days can get really... really boring.

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pink_sugar
It will sound bad but I probably work like 2/3 hours per day ( i have a Monday to Friday 9 to 530 job ) but i am just not busy.

I wish I could be busier though cause sometime i really don't know what to do... :rolleyes:

 

One of my recent jobs was like this as well. Over 90% of my job was working on facebook and there was only so much to do. It got rather tedious at times. Me and my coworkers would surf the web quite a bit because there often wasn't much work to do at all.

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I'm at work from 7am to 15pm but I only work 3 or 4 hours tops .

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BikerAccnt

I probably get a good 6-7 hours of good work done. Sometimes, as in all offices, the work can get a bit boring and I break it up by surfing or walking out back to the warehouse to see the sun.

 

During payroll week (i handle payroll) my time on task goes up.

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Because my office tasks require computer and physical labor, I seem to squeeze 75 minutes worth of work into an hour. I actually put in 50 hours and get paid for 40. I never consider work meetings to be "working" as its more less a Pi55ing match in the upper minds of entitled personnel. So I do have that time to let my mind wander :D The key to multi tasking is to do so in an environment of limited distractions. I have found that more mistakes are made in multi tasking when interruptions are increased. Going 80mph in the work force while others are pacing themselves is discouraging...

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I work a physically demanding job so there's never a moment where I'm not doing something.

 

Typically 9 hour days, 40 minutes for lunch. So 8 hours 20 minutes of work. At the end of the work day my pedometer usually has me clocked at 7 or 8 miles.

 

 

And I'm always moving at a quick pace to cram in as much as I can in that 8 hours.

 

 

Some days I work 5 hour split shifts, 5 hours in the morning, 5 hours in the evening, no break or lunch for those shifts, so those days is 10 hours of pure work.

 

It's also not uncommon that I will spend only 20 minutes at lunch, come back and work off the clock because I have too much to do, and then actually punch back in once I reach the 40 minute mark.

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Eternal Sunshine
Interesting question! I always wondered this, myself. :laugh: Many of my friends who work office jobs are constantly posting on FB during the day.

 

How many did you used to do in academia, ES? I probably average around 30 hours/week or so of completely focused work to be honest. Most of it happens in spurts during the night. :o

 

Probably around 50 hours a week but it was flexible so I did a lot of it from home at night and usually in bursts.

 

At my current job (full time, research institute where my duties are research and consulting but no teaching), things are kind of slow so I am actually hoping for more work.

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At one job early in my career I remember counting up about 8 honest hours of work in a month. I was a contractor, and they loved me for my good work and tried to hire me on permanent.the work I did really was better than most, and when I focused I knocked it out really quickly.

 

Over time the work demands grew along with my responsibilities, so I couldn't really do that. And now I work solid, hectic days and still fail to get many things done. They always surprise me with their gratitude for what I do, while I'm thinking about all the things I didn't do. I take short breaks to check the news or something. I often forget to eat until it's late, and half the time I head home after traffic has cleared.

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