10 Hours

Since working from home, even before COVID, I have been on the clock for 10-hours a day. 0800 to 1800 each day, sometimes without and proper break in between.

It has just become the normal now to turn on my laptop and run quick connection tests whilst I make breakfast, even before 0800. And at at 1800, I am still waiting for emails to arrive to confirm that end-of-day processes have run successfully.

When I was office based, it tended to be 0800-1630 or 0930-1800, slightly staggered shift work that changed every 2 weeks. Other people were there to cover that one and a half hours when you weren’t there. But all of that has changed now the home office is the predominant workplace and the numbers of staff and workload has changed too.

But, I am trying to make sure I take a lunch break each day and I have started watching Breaking Bad again, as a reason to get away from the laptop and into a different room for a while.

I haven’t quite mastered not looking at my work phone every time I hear an email ping in, but I am working on it.