How much REAL work do you do a day?

Typically if I have a lot to do or some projects I am focused on I will put about 9-10 hours into my 8 hour day (salaried is fun right!) but if I do not have a large project then it is probably closer to 6.5 to 7 hours of real work a day.

I sometimes wish it was otherwise but I often look up from my desk and myself what happened to the sun.

Before coming to my current job... I'd never had a job that I couldn't do in 1 hour a day, on average.

Now, I work a good, solid 4 hours a day.  I'm here as a resource as well... so I get interrupted a lot.

Well, I generally come in at least 15 minutes late...uh..I use the side door that way [my boss] can't see me...and uh, after that I just sorta space out for about an hour. I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I'm working. I do that for uh, probably another hour after lunch too. I'd say in a given week I probably only do about 15 minutes of real, actual work.

Heh heh, had to pull it up and quote it.

With my position it all depends on external factors. Sometimes I'll go a 10-hour shift doing about two-and-a-half-hours' worth of work with lots of eff'n off. Other days I'll be completely slammed and 12 hours aren't enough to get things done. 

Because of the way the position's duties are structured, it's not as though I can just do the 2.5-hours' work all at once and surf the web or read for the other 7.5. It's "work" for an hour, sit around for 5 hours with small bursts of work, then about half-an-hour of work, then a series of unpredictable 3 to 5 minute bursts of work until the end of the shift. Usually the work is pretty sedate with the only raise in my heart rate being when I go up a short flight of stairs. On rare occasions it's very stressful and I'll never know how long the stress is going to last, which injects another anxiety into the situation: "what's going to happen NOW? Are we done with this? What's going on, will someone hurry up and call-in to let me know what's going on?"

Yes.

Someone needs to crunch the numbers and see if there is a correlation between actual hours worked and number of BT posts.

In an eight-hour workday, at least ten. Seriously. Elementary teacher so pretty much always working with kids or in a planning meeting. I do have four solo planning blocks of roughly 45 minutes in a six-day cycle, but those are filled with more things to do than I can ever finish. Our Internet use at work is monitored so I can't surf or hit BT during the workday. Plus coaching after school, and it's pretty normal to do an hour or two of work at home, and probably four hours total over the weekends. Headed off on a three-day field trip so now will be "working" approximately 5 AM to 10 PM daily. We teachers earn those summer breaks!

1234run - 2013-03-11 7:04 PM I work for the feds, and I am on BT so........my boss might be lucky to get a solid three hours out of me!

^^^^^This. Actually it depends on how litigious people decide to be.  We ebb and flow.  Last year we were in trial all_the_time, and I had lots of appeals to work on, so I was what I term "busy" but nothing like what I hear in some private sector folks go through.

Excuse me while I go balance my checkbook....

It definitely makes me feel better to know that humans aren't supposed to work 14 hours straight, and they can be more effective with smaller hours.  Now to only convince my employers I shouldn't be working 14 hours...

x3. I just can't see posting on an interwebs forum that you're only productive at work for an hour a day

Bingo. I get paid for 8 hours so I work for 8 hours.