I'm not reading this book until later this week. But all the partying about the Harry Potter book has got me thinking. As an avid reader I want to finish a book NOW -- not later. I've been known to cut out of work early simply to read. What about you? Has the magic of Potter, or another fine time waster taken over your office?
How are we spending office time? Are we being productive; or productively wasting time.
An American Use of Time Survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that Americans spend on average 8 hours a day during the weekdays working.
Of these 8 hours people 'said' they spent 7.6 hours of the 8 actually engaged in work.
Raise your hand if you think a bunch of Americans just lied to the Bureau?
I don't know about you but when I worked in an office setting outside of my home office, there were about a million good ways to waste time. Looking for stolen supplies, trying to hunt down a co-worker or supervisor, lunch, and more.
A survey conducted by AOL and Salary.Com reports that Americans waste more than 2 hours daily at work which costs companies upwards of $759 billion a year.
The biggest time waster...
Personal internet use. I love the irony that this internet survey is reporting internet use as the biggest time waster at work. Too amusing.
Here are the rest of the survey stats: (I'll put a large X by the ones I've been guilty of at some point).
Top Time-Wasting Activities
1. Surfing Internet (personal use) 44.7% X (at my home business, I never did this at an outside job).
2. Socializing with co-workers 23.4% X
3. Conducting personal business 6.8%
4. Spacing out 3.9% X X X X X X
5. Running errands off-premises 3.1% X
How did you stack up? I am a bad worker apparently.
Top Excuses for Time-Wasting
1. Don't have enough work to do 33.2%
2. Underpaid for amount of work I do 23.4%
3. Co-workers distract me 14.7%
4. Not enough evening or weekend time 12.0%
5. Other 16.7%
Top Time-Wasting States
1. Missouri 3.2 hrs/day
2. Indiana 2.8 hrs/day
3. Kentucky 2.8 hrs/day
4. Wisconsin 2.8 hrs/day
5. Nevada 2.7 hrs/day
(Yea, I don't live in any of them, do you?)Top Time-Wasting Industries
1. Insurance 2.5 hrs/day
2. Public Sector (Non-Education) 2.4 hrs/day
3. Research & Development 2.3 hrs/day
4. Education 2.2 hrs/day
5. Software & Internet 2.2 hrs/day
Lamest survey question result: HR managers told the survey that they highly suspect women to be the larger time waster of the two sexes. Lame. Actually, Men and women waste about the same amount of time at work.
The older you are the less time you waste; I suspect that elder workers may work less time overall thus skewing the results.
What do you think of these results. Agree? Disagree? Are you very guilty as charged?
Mull this over and later I'll be back with tips for getting rid of office distractions.
If you're going to blatantly refuse to mull this over why not read Harry Potter; or about him anyway:
Harry Potter, Harry Potter and More Harry Potter
10 Spoilers - Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows
P-Day - Harry Potter and Midnight Madness Harry Potter and the Parallel Internet World - Even Fans have Fans
Office Supplies Office Furniture Office Chairs Office Desks Wholesale Office Supply
Being a WAHM has its advantages. One of them is that you can take off to read whenever you want. (As long as you can forego the pay as well.)
Posted by: Laura | July 21, 2007 2:34 PM | Permalink to Comment