As we blogged about in “The Perfect Amount of Time to Work Each Day,” the 8-hour workday is not necessarily completed with 8-hours of actual work. With distractions and low-energy times, we can all be guilty of wasting big blocks of our working hours.
As Inc. reports, the average U.S. worker spends just 39 percent of their clocked-in hours on actual work, but employee laziness isn’t necessarily to blame. The percentage of time dedicated to job tasks in 2016 is down from the 46 percent reported last year. So what’s causing the severe drop in productivity?
Workers surveyed reported spending 21 percent of their days in meetings (half of which they didn’t find productive) and 16 percent answering emails. This gibes with our annual Time Killer survey of 1,700 working professionals and business owners. 43% of our respondents reported spending too much time dealing with emails. So even when employees want to get work done, they still have to deal with managers interrupting them throughout the day.
As this MentalFloss post says, working from home is becoming more widely accepted and, as you might suspect, remote employees get more done and feel happier overall.
What are your best strategies for getting the most productivity out of your workday? Please share your tips with us!