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Remote Workers Are Wasting More Than an Hour a Day on Productivity Theater, New Report Finds

Jessica Stillman

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One of the big benefits promised by remote work is the end of “productivity theater.” If you’re a hundred miles away from your boss why would you bother creating yet another project tracking document or scheduling pointless meetings just to appear busy? She can’t see you so why not slip in 20 minutes of yoga or feed your cat until you actually have something to do?

That kind of flexibility is, of course, a more humane and sensible way to work. But experts also insist that not rushing to fill every spare moment of your workday actually helps you get more done in the long-run too.

Which makes this kind of truly flexible and asynchronous work deeply seductive. Unfortunately, according to a new report by software companies Qatalog and GitLab, it’s still mostly not happening. Remote workers continue to waste more than an hour of every day performing productivity, it found.

Old habits die hard.

Drawing on surveys of 2,000 knowledge workers in the US and UK, the two companies’ new ‘Killing Time at Work’ report finds that online workers are behaving too much like cubicle warriors of decades past.

“The dramatic workplace shifts of the pandemic gave us a once in a lifetime opportunity…

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