Is Your Time Well Spent? Reflecting on Knowledge Work More Holistically

Authors: H. Guillou, K. Chow, T. Fritz, J. McGrenere

The modern workplace is more demanding than ever before. Yet, since the industrial age, productivity measures have predominantly stayed narrowly focused on the output of the work, and not accounted for the big shift in the cognitive demands placed on the workers or the interleaving of work and life that is so common today. We posit that a more holistic conceptualization of Time Well Spent (TWS) at work could mitigate this issue. In our 1-week study, 40 knowledge workers used the experience sampling method (ESM) to rate their TWS and then define TWS at the end of the week. Our work contributes a preliminary characterization of TWS and empirical evidence that this term can capture a more holistic notion of work that also includes the worker’s feelings and well-being.

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