With millions of Americans transitioning to telecommuting, working from home, and employers moving jobs online, this is creating a huge amount of extraneous free time for employees to enjoy that they did not have before March 2020.
Billions of hours previously spent having to report to a campus to work and having to manage performance away from home all reclaimed by converted remote workers.
It makes you wonder,
What do we do with billions of hours of free time?
Every teleworker whose position mutated into working from home has gained an extra 54 minutes a day on average.
If you are the lucky recipient of an extra hour a day, what do you think you would do? Would you sleep in an extra hour? You might be surprised to discover what reality is in terms of all those benefits of remote work.
What do you do with your extra 54 minutes per day?
“Rather than enhancing true flexibility in when and where employees work,” write the authors of a new study, “the capacity to work from home mostly extends the workday and encroaches into what was formerly home and family time.”
19 Minutes Working More
It turns out that if you have converted to telecommuting for work, you are spending 19 minutes of your free time bounty in additional work hours for your employer. This could be for a variety of reasons. You could be working more and not noticing it because you are more comfortable in your home working environment. Or you might be working more on purpose to increase your performance for job security. Whatever the case, you are doing it.
4 Minutes on Side Projects
You are using four minutes a day on average working on side projects, which could include, continuing education, researching career expansion, or generating additional income.
13.5 Minutes on Chores
Whether for concern or comfort, you are working on household chores, like laundry, vacuuming, cooking, doing dishes, or other duties around the house.
17 Minutes Leisure Activities
This nets most remote workers seventeen minutes for leisure activities and/or exercise every day. Probably a lot less than you expected.
10 Minutes with Children
In average, work from home parents sacrifice ten of those minutes each day that would otherwise be able to be utilized as leisure time, focusing on spending quality time with their children, leaving parents with a net of seven minutes a day of free time.
Spending $27 per Week More
And all that extra money you are saving while working from Home? It could leave you scratching your head at the end of the month, wondering where all the fruits of your labor is going, because, “I Should Have More Money Working from Home.” And it turns out that you are actually spending $27 per week more than you did when you weren’t telecommuting.
It’s no wonder that you are thinking about needing an additional income source.
8% Moonlighting
Eight percent of all employees who have transitioned to working from home are actively engaged in or pursuing second income opportunities.