How much time do spend at work ... you know ... working? 19

[bradpa77]

I am trying something new this year at work. I've decided to keep track of my productive time at work. I made a spreadsheet that keeps track of what I do and whether or not it's productive time or non-productive time. If you haven't tried this, I highly recommend it. You'd be shocked to see how much time is taken up by doing non-work related things during the day. I'm not just talking about social and slack off time. I was suprised to see how much time is spent on bathroom trips, snack and beverage runs, and the like. I have been aiming to average 70% of my time towards productive work time. It's actually a bit harder to do than I had expected. I thought it would be easy to get that number, but a little time talking here, some time on the internet there, it all adds up ... and quick.

So basically I was just curious with everyone else. Have you tried this? How much time do you spend working and how much time do you spend doing other ... extracurricular activities?

Brad

 

[KENAT]

In answer to the title of this thread:

A lot less since I found this forum!

 

[wes616]

had been on vacation for the last 2 weeks... no phone, no email, it was wonderful... anyway I think that yesterday I spent about 7 minutes of the 11 hours i was here doing actual work.


Wes C.
------------------------------
When they broke open molecules, they found they were only stuffed with atoms. But when they broke open atoms, they found them stuffed with explosions...

 

[l3city]

I give a 100% at Work!!
Mo=12%
Tue=23%
Wed=40%
Th=20%
Fr=5%
Total = 100%!!

 

[FrenchCAD]

hehehe

good point there l3city

Cyril Guichard
Mechanical Engineer Consultant
France

 

[fribby]

A great quote from one of the older guys in our workshops. A senior manager who had just taken over the maintenance department was doing her introductory rounds. She walked into this guys workshop where he was sat playing Solitaire on his PC. Not wanting to make a fuss she just introduced herself and asked "So what do you do here?" to which our technician replied "As little as possible".

Can't fault the guys honesty.

 

[Comcokid]

A recent CBS 60 Minutes said it all:

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/03/31/60minutes/main1460246.shtml

"Americans work longer hours than nearly anyone in the developed world, even the Japanese."

and a little later in the broadcast . . .

". . . it may surprise you to learn that when it comes to productivity, the U.S. is not No. 1. In fact, workers in four European countries, including France, are more productive per hour of work than Americans . . . even though the Europeans work less and take more vacation."

Put these facts together, and you can only come to the conclusion that working in America is highly inefficient, and we work longer to make up for the inefficiency. I know that in my own work doing design, the reporting functions are emphasized more than the actual design and technical functions.

Paper over Product!

 

[Supercar1]

What keeps your job safe is that other businesses are not any more efficient!

Cheers!

 

[jmw]

See the example earlier of the mill owner....
It adds up to the fact that it is not the time spent but the results delivered.
Note that there are hourly paid workers and salaried staff... why the difference? because how they work and what they do are measured differently.

JMW

http://www.ViscoAnalyser.com

 

[ubrben]

Never calculated my percentage as such, but I suspect it's reasonably low.

The stats about productivity are interesting, I work with Japanese colleagues regularly and have acquaintances who work in the States. It strikes me that long hours and managerial perceptions of putting hours in are a big problem.

This whole culture ignores fundamental human issues of relationships, personal motivation, etc. Yes a company's primary role is to provide a ROI for the shareholders but as far as personal motivation goes, this is about the least likely reason for an individual to come to work.

The whole economy is therefore based on conflicting motivations. I am lucky enough to be in a reasonably creative role (motorsport sector) where my long terms results are assessed rather than my hourly productivity.

Many companies allow staff a much more free working environment and many of them don't suffer as a result.

How many of you have your best flashes of inspiration on the toilet or walking in spectacular scenery - I know I have. More holiday time needed? We get 25 days per year plus national holidays (about six) per year. What's the average holiday allowance in the US these days?

Ben

Senior Design Analyst
Dunlop Tyres
Motorsport Division

 

[whyun]

Typically companies (engineering or otherwise) provide between 8 to 12 paid holidays. Vacation days typically start at 10 days a year and as you accumulate seniority, gets up to around 21 days. Sick leaves can range from one week a year to one day per month. Some companies combine vacation and sick leaves as a PTO (paid time off). These are typical, from my observation, in the western United States.

 

[ubrben]

That is crazy. I knew it was bad - but that's less days than I thought. I accept that it's a cultural thing (as it is in Japan) but if managers honestly think it's the best way to get the best out of people they're mad.

Ben

 

[MikeHalloran]

On what planet is madness not a job requirement for managers? ;-)



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[KENAT]

Having gone from the UK to the US (CA) I've got to say employment conditions in general don't seem as good.

And remember the UK was kind of low for European standards and CA is fairly good by US standards.

They say a lot about the pay being higher but that's difficult to really calculate with the exchange rate, different tax systems, cost of living etc.

I get 10 days 'earned' vacation per year rather than the 25 day bank at my last place in the UK.

Also both here and the UK I have/had to take one week off at a date determined by the employer for factory shut down.

In fairness though I think I now get about 1 extra public holiday woo hoo.

 

[EngineerDave]

I had to do this for a job I had in college. We had to bill time we worked on each project.

The old guy I worked with complained about how long it took to track stuff. Certainly it took a bit of time.

Unfortunately for me the axe came because there wasn't enough work for the two of us. I was probably too honest at the time about the number of hours I spent on a project and maybe even estimated low.

During one meeting he told me to pay my salary he had to see about 3.5 hours billable work to a project. Some days I got it, but apparently not enough.

That sucked.

Now I kind of do it to see the areas I work on, but rarely track the time. I'm going to again soon to see how efficient I can be.

 

[cksh]

It depends how much work we have laying around. Right now we are extremely low on work. So maybe 3-4 hours a day at most. Anyone in my department who has more work to do than that is one heck of a milker. When we are busy my boss is all over us and I am so engrossed in my work that I forget I had to go to the bathroom an hour earlier.

I am in the US but work for a Japanese company. Our couterparts in Japan work 12-16 hour days pretty consistantly. And when they go home they still get up in the middle of the night to check their email

But is if wasn't for the inefficiencies, of what seems to be every compnay I have worked for, I would only have to work one day a week even if we have plenty of work Some of the managers here like to have me change stuff just because they can not because it is better. I get tired of arguing with them. They want a square tire? no problem thats what us engineers do gives me something to do other than post here

 

[kchayfie]

For reasons outside my control, I was late on producing some of the deliverables on my current project. I have spent so much time over the last 2 weeks explaining to various folks up the management tree the reasons why I haven't been able to deliver that I haven't had time to work on the project and I'm struggling to meet the revised due date.

Does sitting in a meeting room while an ineffective manager tries to deliver an a**-kicking count as time working?!

 

[KENAT]

kchayfie, feel your pain. One of our major projects is way behind schedule. I'm only involved in the peripherals and my departments work is more or less on schedule.

None the less we get to spend hours each week tracking our progress, communicating our progress to other departments, creating presentations to show our progress... Every couple of weeks the the director decides he's not happy with the format we're providing the information in so we get to spend hours re formatting the reports & presentations etc.

If we'd just been allowed to get on with it we'd probably be all but finished with our part of the project by now.

I'm all for keeping track of where you are so you know if there are problems and/or you're on schedule but when it comes at the expense of actually doing the work it misses the point somewhat.

So if I subtract the time I spend supporting the tracking efforts each week I lose between 5 & 10 hours a week.

 

[HgTX]

KENAT: sounds like you should make "progress-tracking activities" one of the items you track. Maybe it'll show them something.

Hg

Eng-Tips policies: faq731-376

 

[KENAT]

We discussed doing that but decided it wouldn't work out well for us to point out what a waste of time the level of progress tracking we were doing was.

 

[271828]

I've never done the stopwatch thing, but I have an observation. I worked in a design office for 9 years and was "at work" for an average of around 11 hours/day M-T and 8-9 hours on Friday. More often than not, I was mad or frustrated, but usually not very tired when I left work.

I'm in a different situation now. The days that I sit and WORK (no BSing, no personal e-mail, no internet, etc.), I am very tired after 7-8 hours. I can push it to 9-10, but it's very hard and I can't keep it up very long.

Maybe I'm a wimp, but I really think most people have a REAL WORK limit far below the number of hours that they're "at work."

Back in my old office, I'd guess that the better employees probably worked 5 real hours/day. Most folks I know probably worked no more than 4 real hours/day. The time lost to personal calls, the coffee machine, smoke breaks, personal e-mails, internet, talking to co-workers, etc., is absolutely staggering.