Ask HN: How much of your time at work do you spend not working?

According to RescueTime, I spend around 83% of my screen time on "productive" things. My total screen time averages about 25 hours / week, whereas my at-work time is roughly closer to double that. I'd say that 67% of my off-screen at-work time is "productive" meetings and the other third is things like lunch, walks, etc.

Putting this all together, I spend 37.5 hours / week productively and 12.5 hours / week at work slacking off (or doing human things like eating and pooping). So call it 75% productive time.

I generally enjoy my job. I've counted writing this post / assembling this data as "not productive" time.

Unfortunately I'm paid hourly and remotely, so while getting settled, checking an email or two, getting coffee, etc are all things I would do as part of a normal workday, I don't tend to log those hours or get paid for any of it

I probably spend half my time not working. I'm burnt out though. After a few years at my current position, I just don't care.

Why is this?

I've had a few promising projects languish because my manager is slow or hesitant to allocate resources. That's a bit demoralizing. When I'm on a path to production for a functioning system I get caught up in the devops meeting vortex. That's a waste of time and it takes several weeks to get any sort of resolution. In these cases my time is mostly spent looking for workarounds and not "working". I feel there are a lot of politics and favoritism in the company, and my manager (and our team) is not on the right side. It's demotivating to have your work ignored because you're not a priority. I don't know how anyone stays for more than a year.

Edit: In the first few months I worked on random on-going projects, but was quickly made lead on some new projects. It was good at first, but after about 9 months I'd say most (90%) weeks I don't put in anywhere near 40 hours of work.

The sad thing is I've always gotten a raise (double digit in two cases) and full bonus every performance cycle.

I've finally started looking for another job.

Does anyone have recommendations? I'm really looking for a company that enables their individual contributors (engineers) to actually get shit done.

Yes, that's what he said, in the second half of the sentence you quoted: "so part of me wonders if I'm not as unusual as I feel"

Depends how you want to define work.

I think of stuff that is beneficial to the company in one way or another like 95% of the time.

Re structuring thoughts, digesting ideas.... talking to others to understand how they think.

But if someone that did not know me came and looked at what i did during work hours and did not get to ask questions to me. I would assume they would think that i only worked 20-25% of the time.

Things are not always what they seem.