Inefficiency - "You should blame the system that forced you to work within the structure of the 8 hour work day." When you are expected to work 8 hours a day,

Inefficiency - "You should blame the system that forced you to work within the structure of the 8 hour work day." When you are expected to work 8 hours a day, the problem is not that you fill your time with useless shit and then become unproductive. The problem is that you feel like you need to demonstrate or show to the world that you're doing work for the whole 8 hours, or more specifically, you need to show that you're not slacking off for too long. So, let's take programmers as an example. I've had colleagues who alt-tab A LOT. Basically, 15 minutes in the IDE, tab out, 5 minutes of chatting. 15 minutes back to the IDE, 5 minutes back to browsing. For a 8 hour day, that's 75% of the time working. Good right? NO. Context switching is expensive. A large part of the 15 minutes of work in the IDE is resetting the frame of mind to work. Now why do people context switch. Simple. Micro-management from project managers, team leaders, bosses ... If I, as a team leader, look over at your screen and see you surfing the net for 1 full hour, I'll get pissed. But if you alt-tab a lot, there is a good chance when I'm spying over your shoulder, you're on the IDE. Good worker! I hate it. Which is why when I had my own team, I told my guys, you want to surf, sure, spend as long as you want. But when you code, focus on the coding for a full X amount of time. So, I tell them, you want a break, surf for 30 minutes. But make sure you get full one and a half hours of coding done first. Plan what you need to do, tell the team what you aim to achieve, and do it. I also find that when people don't need to pretend to work, and can rest in peace chatting, surfing, they tend to be less stress. Another example, sleeping in the office is a big no-no. So what do people do? They run off to the stairs to sleep. Or to the toilet. Ridiculous. If my guy has been pulling all nighters, I think it is perfectly fine for him to rest his head on the desk for a while.