I just read an article in Businessweek about how a lot of British workers want to telecommute but their managers, in general, are reluctant. But one part made me mad. They quoted a survey which seemed to support manager concerns about productivity of telecommuters. They said:

Almost half (46 per cent) of home workers confessed to spending over an hour of every working day on non-work activities—with ‘personal internet use’ and paying bills being the biggest guilty pleasures. One in 10 home workers even confessed to watching TV and taking a nap on work time.

‘Multitasking’ was also popular with WFHers - almost half (42 per cent) of female home workers said they regularly do cleaning or laundry during the workday—and almost a third of men say they use work time to prepare meals or keep fit.

However, there’s two major problems with looking at these results in a vacuum:

1. They fail to mention (if they even surveyed them at all) how many workers who come into the office spend over an hour per day on ‘personal internet use’ or ‘multitasking’.
2. They don’t factor in that most people who work from home end up working more hours, because they’re not wasting time commuting, and they often take shorter lunches since they’re on their own. So telecommuters’ workdays are typically a little longer and taking a break is not unreasonable.

I actually wrote an article in my blog just recently on this exact topic - about how to fairly fit in personal activities during your workday if you telecommute.

Remember, it’s not about how you spend every waking minute. It’s about whether you fairly put in your time and how much (and at what quality) work you get done.

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