Do you keep regular business hours?

[Marq]

Why not?
The govn live in the past.
JM Attorneys collect prescribed debt.
Discovery channel is devoted to Aliens from way back.
Retro is in.

[IanF]

Hi Samantha
Why are you replying to a thread made in 2007?

[samanthaflax02]

Yes i do, but never compromise with my persona life.

[Yvonne]

My husband and I are generally at the office from approx. 7.30 a.m. to 7 p.m., and take work home - especially reading matter and e-mails to answer.

We take quite a bit of personal time off to attend to Telkom, lawyers (Bought a house recently) etc.
I sometimes wonder if our employees think we have it "easy" when we come and go!
They never see us working over the weekends or evenings.

Yvonne Symons

[Debbiedle]

Mostly! But do take time for the kids sport and catch up later or before but at the desk at 06h30 and don't officially knock off until 17h00 most days!

[duncan drennan]

For me it is really important to create some sort of work time (not necessarily all together) and life time. With both Donné and myself working from home it is easy to end up doing life between things, and effectively ending up just working the "whole time."

I also try to make sure that certain times the only work that I'm allowed to do is "build my business" type work, i.e. creative thinking, where to from here, and so forth, and not do the "work" of work.

[Dave A]

Great question! This one's huge.

I have been self-employed pretty well all my working life. One of the cornerstones for me from the outset was that just because I was my own boss did not mean I could just come and go as a pleased. I still had to maintain discipline in respect of working hours. So for me being at work during working hours has always been very important.

Now, some 20 years down the line, at times I have find myself questioning this line of thought. Quite possibly it is for more important for us to allocate our time allocation based on a reference framework of goals and deadlines that we have set for ourselves.

Of course, the mechanics of contacting or servicing our clients can influence our range of options in terms of practical working hours. Bottom line - it's more about results than timekeeping when it comes to certain functions.

For me, the real problem is probably more related to my penchant for extra curricular activities. And of course waking up in the middle of the night with a bright new idea and finding that I can't go back to sleep until I've done something about it. And after a session from 1 until 4 in the morning, rolling into work at 7:30 all bright and breezy sure can be a bind.

ps @Candy : I'm sure a laptop is not too far away down the line now...

[Snoopy_inc]

hrm..

Well i have been down this path a couple of times.

In my line of Work (IT) its always at diff times.... i end when the clients problems are sorted out.
Let me give you an example... 2 months ago i had 1 weekend to myself.
of that i spent most of the time working on the forums etc and catching up on my day to day stuff.

Working 12 hour shifts and friday into sat on server related tasks etc is tedious work but its required. Saturday work is usually relaxing in a sense.

But ya... im not really used to normall hours as i used to run multiple business ventures with my folks before hand.

My record in one month is 12 hours a day for a month = roughly about 300 hours in one month.

[Candy Bouwer]

I must admit i get a second wind in the evening and could possible put in a couple of extra hours but for other commitments at home... this could be very constructive. I often have idears and ly awake with things i am working on or at during the day. I do get frustrated when i realise i can't do anything at home if this or that needs to be changed..one of the things i need to work towards is getting connected at home..this would be a solution for me personally come to think of it. I came into work this evening to join you all. Being a Mom and a Working Mom has its moments. Theres nothing easy any way around but if you can be flexi ...grab it.

[kerryanne]

Of course we all put in some overtime in the evenings and on weekends from time to time, but as a rule, do you keep normal 9-to-5 type business hours?

And how much of a difference does it make in your particular line of work?

I work from home, and often swap time in the evenings or on weekends for regular daytime hours, for a host of reasons. At the moment, for example, it's just too hot to concentrate on anything at all during the afternoon, so I try to get started really early (I'm aiming for starting to work at around 6.30am, but I'm not quite there yet), and then put in some time in the evenings as well, and do other things like errands or reading or grocery shopping in the afternoons instead.

What about you? Do you have this kind of choice? And if so, what are the benefits and disadvantages of self-imposed flexi-time?