Jane Lewis usually wakes up at around half past seven in the morning.  She likes to take it easy in the morning, so she makes some coffee, then goes back to bed and listens to the news on the radio before finally getting up and going out to work.  By that time, it’s rush hour, however, and she has to pack on to a very busy, over-filled tube train.  She often gets into her office late.  

She needs to relax after such a stressful journey, so she takes it easy at first.  She spends the first hour of her morning checking her email, writing some messages to her friends, having a look at a few things on the internet.  After that, it’s usually ten thirty or eleven, which means coffee time.  Coffee break, she tells herself, is actually really important – it might look like you’re doing nothing, but actually it’s a vital moment to network with colleagues in an informal atmosphere.  You can learn lots during coffee break, she tells herself.  When she gets back to her desk twenty minutes later she feels refreshed and active.  She is now prepared to do two hours hard work before lunch.  

She writes a big part of a policy document or report, or does some serious work on a marketing or financial plan.  She doesn’t finish the job, but it doesn’t matter because there’s no real deadline for it.  

Seeing as she hasn’t really had any breakfast, she starts to feel really hungry by this time, and can’t concentrate anymore, so she goes off to lunch ten minutes early.  Because she’s hungry, she eats a big lunch.  

When she gets back to her desk an hour later, she’s feeling full of food and really tired.  She’d really like to have a sleep, but she has an important meeting at 3 o’clock.  

The meeting should be short, but it goes on for a long time because there isn’t really a clear agenda, and lots of people start talking about things that aren’t relevant to her – and they talk for ages!  

When the meeting finishes it’s nearly 5 o’clock, and some of her colleagues are already going home.  She feels a bit jealous of them, but it doesn’t matter, because everything will be quieter when the others have gone, and she can get some real work done, she tells herself.  

Then a colleague phones up and tells her that someone is sick on the reception desk.  Jane will have to cover reception for an hour.  By 6.30, she’s free again, but now she’s tired.  She’s been in the office all day, she realises, and has only really done two hours good work.  

Never mind, she thinks, I’ll take an early night tonight, then get up early tomorrow morning and come into the office early and full of energy.