Working here might be ok I suppose…
In a perfect world my work day would probably be along the lines of something like this:
As you can probably tell, I am not a morning person and have weighted this deliberately to be doing work later in the afternoon and night. I am always more productive later on and especially later in the evening so this makes sense to me. You will also notice that there is only around 5-6 hours of actual work here, but according to the productivity increases we’ve gained over the last 50 years I should actually only be working 4 hours a day, so this should be more than enough (also my increased productivity at those times I’ve chosen to do my work would probably count for a further 2 hours anyway).
How does this square up with a typical real work day then? Here is a rough schedule of a typical work day for me:
As you can see there are some stark differences in the two schedules:
- Getting up at least 1.5 hours before I really would like to
- Commuting at least 2 hours 29 minutes more than I would like to
- Working at least 8/9/10 hours compared to what I would call a happy medium of 5/6
- Being “engaged” in work related duties for at least 11.25 hours a day when I would call a happy medium 5 or 6
The differences between the desired employee and employer schedules are only going to create cognitive dissonance and therefore ultimately… make me unhappy. I’m not going to sit here and whine about it, I’m just stating this as a matter of fact. And it’s worth highlighting because I know that a lot of other people are in exactly the same boat (or worse) work wise, and feel exactly the same way as I do.
There are many and obvious reasons why it might never happen, but wouldn’t it be nice if employers trusted their staff enough to write their own work schedules…?
I am certain that with the right employees (easier said than done of course) that efficiency would increase if this were to happen, as people will know when they are most and least effective, whether that be times of the day, days of the week, or even times of the year.
Also, with communications technology going the way it is and an increasing number of means and benefits for remote working (for both employee and employer), along with what I can see happening in the Financial Independence community – more people reaching FI and leaving the workforce after recognising they are getting a bum deal, and once FI they have much greater bargaining power over their working conditions (should they choose to continue or go back) – I can only see remote working and flexible work schedules increasing in the future. And hopefully one day fairly soon I will have the power of impending FI to negotiate some better working hours for myself.
In the meantime though I will keep on heading for the exit route as fast as I possibly can.
This is just a fairly off the cuff example of how I might plan my day if it were entirely up to me and I still had “a job” (which incidentally, I do of course!). There is a lot of flexibility built into my perfect work day as well which I think is another key to being happy, doing the same thing everyday gets a little boring. On the other hand, other people love a regular schedule and would get extremely upset if it went out the window. I guess I am not one of those people, I am guessing my perfect work day may be a bit unconventional and not for everyone, and I am also guessing some folk’s perfect work day will look a little like mine whilst others will be nothing like it at all.
What would your perfect work day look like?
Discussion (10) ¬
It would be lovely if employers did let us structure our working day to a certain extent. My last employer prided itself on offering work life balance to employees but actually there was none. They weren’t keen on flexible working or working from home and the sheer workload meant you came in earlier than you were meant to and stayed later too!
My perfect work day would be similar to yours. I’d probably do ‘actual work’ around 10am to 12noon and then 1pm to 3pm. Then I’d finish early to collect my daughter from school and spend quality family time with her and my hubby in the evening. (Sigh)
Hayley that is exactly what my current employer is like! They try to come across with an image of being caring etc but when it comes down it they don’t really give two hoots about their employees and only care about corporate profits (like most companies of any size I would have thought). We even have to do an employee survey every so often, once our department came out in the “unsatisfied” category and rather than look at higher management and higher level organisational stuff (which is clearly where the issues were if you actually read our answers)… they basically said we need to look at ourselves to see how we can become more satisfied with work. WTF!!!!!
Your day sounds very pleasant as well, I think I could hack that especially if we have some little Firestarters running around down the line 🙂
Funny you ended up with a (Sigh)… I had that written down as my ending line in the post but deleted it at the last minute for some reason. But I echo your thoughts on that one, sigh indeed.
That’s a nice looking schedule and one I could dig! Like you, I feel like 4-5 hours is more than sufficient, and any more than that causes cognitive dissonance. In my case, I’m just no longer engaged, and even though I’m there physically, I’ve checked out mentally.
It’s amazing how much time gets freed up when you eliminate the commute… with modern day technology, it’s become so easy to get a hold of someone. I for one don’t agree with the new Yahoo mandates to get people to work in a centralized location. We’re adults and if we can get our work done from home, we should be allowed that option. If you’re a proven, productive employee, it’s kind of insulting that your employer doesn’t trust you.
All the best!
p.s. I also head for the exits as early as I can!
I wish I could check out mentally but have too much to do at the moment! Next year my resolution is to gradually phase out work commitments so I can at the least just do my 9-5, which should free up at least 5-10 hours per week (so I can write more blog posts 🙂 )
I don’t mind the commute quite as much as I maybe should as on a train I can read a book, blogs and even write up some draft posts, so it’s not the end of the world. Still fun to whinge about occasionally though. 😉
I didn’t hear that about Yahoo… that does seem very backwards for a tech company.
All the best to you as well, I like your site from what I’ve read so far, so will be following with interest.
I think I have written this exact same schedule of the ideal work day somewhere on a message board! Not that I’m work averse, it’s just that professional office jobs (of the type I’m most suited for) typically require ass in seat time (AIST) of 8.0 hours (in the US anyway). I think if I could work 5 hours per day on my own schedule (and telecommute) for 62.5% of the pay, I’d do it. Otherwise work consumes you during the week, and personal chores tend to take up a lot of the weekend. When are you supposed to live life??
Yea it’s minimum AIST of 8 hours over here as well, although a lot of jobs I think that is all that is happening 60% of the time anyway, I.e. people trying to look busy.
I would totally take the pay cut for that work schedule as well! This is something to look into when winding down my career in 4-5 years time when I have more negotiating power (I.e a much bigger stash to fall back on)
The worse thing about it is you can’t just be honest now, you have to play the game and pretend you love working for your company, or you’ll get passed up for promotions (in my opinion this is how things work anyway) which will damage any early retirement hopes greatly. It would be a bold man to suggest such a cut down work schedule with no fallback stash already in place, the upside of acceptance is high but unlikely, but the downside is too great and too likely to happen IMO.
You’re right about workplace perceptions. Imagine going in to your boss and saying “Look, everyone here fucks around at least 40% of the time. There’s maybe 5 hours of solid work happening on an average day. Can I just come in and work my ass off from 8 am to 1 pm then go home?”
Getting passed up for the next promotion would be the least of your worries! 😉
Once I got my stash lined up, I kind of stopped giving a shit about worst case scenarios. Worst case the job ends and I retire. Other employers will come a-knocking at some point if you kick ass at what you do. Maybe I go back to work? Maybe I stay retired? Good choices to have.
Haha! That is officially the funniest comment I’ve received on here so far, congrats 🙂
Agreed, having options like that must feel good!
Well, I did get fired, so caveat emptor… 🙂