Surprisingly, the type of job you're looking for does exist - I know someone in a role where they spend very little time actually working - BUT you may not like

Surprisingly, the type of job you're looking for does exist - I know someone in a role where they spend very little time actually working - BUT you may not like to hear what I'm about to describe. The role is at a unionized utilities company. The reason there's little work is that seemingly simple tasks are usually estimated in the order of days (or sometimes weeks). There's little opportunity for career advancement since the unionized nature makes every role stable/comfortable regardless of contribution to bottom line. But through the same token, most work can be considered busy work: tweaking header font sizes to please the whims of some higher up, re-fixing regressions caused by mediocre peers and the like. Decision making is done by higher ups and for the most part you just work on tickets that are triaged for you. The work is on the flagship product, but it's so dysfunctional already that it doesn't really matter if you care about its quality or not. The upside is the job is fully remote, and the workload is typically in the range of 10-20 hours per week, if that. Pays above national average too. The downside is, don't expect to come out of this job with up-to-date skills. It's also extremely unfulfilling and meaningless work. It's easy money but it's also easy to get trapped in a rut if later your career goals change (yes, this happens as you get older) My advice is actually to look for the opposite type of work: challenging impactful work. Happiness is a function of accomplishments. It's alluring to covet for less work, but IMHO that's the "grass is greener on the other side" phenomenon.