I’ve tracked my time for a year working remotely doing research and it comes out to between 25 and 35 hours a week.
I’d guess a little more than half is deep work where I am fully engaged and undistracted. Most of the time this means taking no breaks for a several hour stretch every day. It’s not uncommon for at least half of the deep work to be misguided or not best spent on reflection.
I’m not sure what to imagine when I hear an amount of weekly hours when working remotely. Working 40 hours a week at an office or on a job site can be relaxing compared to the weeks where I track 30 hours or less since it’s common to spread five hours of work across a “normal” eight hour work day span of time.
I next describe what different quantities of hours worked looks and feels like. Basically, my guess is that 1 hour of remote work for me = 1.5 hours of “office work” so 20 (40) hours worked = 30 (60) hours spent “at the office”.
In a 20-25ish hour work week (if not caused by low mood) I typically am balanced and happy, feeling like I have most of my afternoons and evenings free to exercising, see friends and create things. This would be ideal to maintain, and having these weeks keeps me from burning out. (Aside: normally the intensity of work weeks cycles between high and low intensity work weeks).
25-30 hours. In these weeks I maintain the habits I find essential to keep going, but it feels like just barely. On half the days I finish work, and then immediately go for a run before it is dark, return home to frantically cook dinner then squeeze another hour working before winding down which normally does not include a discrete leisure pursuit beyond listening to a podcast while tidying up the office-house. On two maybe three if I’m lucky work days I do something that’s fun but not exercise for at least an hour.
30-35. I have one or two periods of time during the work week spent doing something deliberately not work related. My relationships feel a bit strained, if there’s a quiet time it’s spent in transit or doing chores. I imagine this as hard to maintain, and in the deadline weeks (or god forbid months) where this persists I feel myself wearing thin.
35-40. If I’m working this much something has gone wrong. There is nothing but work. It feels as if I spend the whole day, every work day engaged in work or thinking about it. I may not leave the house for a couple days. This normally means a few chunks of the weekend slipping back to do something “light” and “easy”. Every non-dinner meal (which are often few and hastily prepared) is consumed at my desk which I’m at minutes after waking. There is sometimes a break for dinner, but if I can I’ll eat that at my desk too. During these (rare) weeks things start to fall apart.
These weeks are frequently followed by a hangover week where I crash, and work 20ish hours.
I’ve tracked my time for a year working remotely doing research and it comes out to between 25 and 35 hours a week.
I’d guess a little more than half is deep work where I am fully engaged and undistracted. Most of the time this means taking no breaks for a several hour stretch every day. It’s not uncommon for at least half of the deep work to be misguided or not best spent on reflection.
I’m not sure what to imagine when I hear an amount of weekly hours when working remotely. Working 40 hours a week at an office or on a job site can be relaxing compared to the weeks where I track 30 hours or less since it’s common to spread five hours of work across a “normal” eight hour work day span of time.
I next describe what different quantities of hours worked looks and feels like. Basically, my guess is that 1 hour of remote work for me = 1.5 hours of “office work” so 20 (40) hours worked = 30 (60) hours spent “at the office”.
In a 20-25ish hour work week (if not caused by low mood) I typically am balanced and happy, feeling like I have most of my afternoons and evenings free to exercising, see friends and create things. This would be ideal to maintain, and having these weeks keeps me from burning out. (Aside: normally the intensity of work weeks cycles between high and low intensity work weeks).
25-30 hours. In these weeks I maintain the habits I find essential to keep going, but it feels like just barely. On half the days I finish work, and then immediately go for a run before it is dark, return home to frantically cook dinner then squeeze another hour working before winding down which normally does not include a discrete leisure pursuit beyond listening to a podcast while tidying up the office-house. On two maybe three if I’m lucky work days I do something that’s fun but not exercise for at least an hour.
30-35. I have one or two periods of time during the work week spent doing something deliberately not work related. My relationships feel a bit strained, if there’s a quiet time it’s spent in transit or doing chores. I imagine this as hard to maintain, and in the deadline weeks (or god forbid months) where this persists I feel myself wearing thin.
35-40. If I’m working this much something has gone wrong. There is nothing but work. It feels as if I spend the whole day, every work day engaged in work or thinking about it. I may not leave the house for a couple days. This normally means a few chunks of the weekend slipping back to do something “light” and “easy”. Every non-dinner meal (which are often few and hastily prepared) is consumed at my desk which I’m at minutes after waking. There is sometimes a break for dinner, but if I can I’ll eat that at my desk too. During these (rare) weeks things start to fall apart.
These weeks are frequently followed by a hangover week where I crash, and work 20ish hours.