Poll: Do you work on the weekends? If so, how much?

What is a weekend?

I work whatever hours and days are needed to keep on top of my business and deadlines plus doing additional research for information that may be valuable to future clients and projects.

Robin -- What may seem a simple question is really a big topic. To answer directly, my answer is yes but only in a reactive mode 95% of the time. I check my email and voicemail and if something cannot wait until Monday, I respond to it. I run a service (consulting) business that is global in nature and therefore we have the time zone/date line issue to deal with as well.

As with most people in my position, there is the occasional "project" that requires weekend work but not too often.

For our clients and others in our sphere of influence it varies but the dominant answer again is yes. With the proliferation of portable technology devices (laptops, smart phones ipads, etc) many employers "require" their employees to be in touch 24 X 7 X 365. We have addressed this change in our work environment in several white papers, our L3 Leadership Development Program and our "Smart Skills" program. If you wish to download the white papers or learn more, please visit us at www.glowan.com

I wish I didn't have to.

Being a small business with limited resources, it falls on me to make sure my product is delivered by deadline. For this reason, all I can rely on is me, myself, and I (as I am the only one responsible for building my product). Thus, I find I am forced to budget anywhere between 1-6 hours per weekend. And no, this is not checking email and sending a few tweets, it's good old fashioned spreadsheet work. For free!

I love my job! Having two jobs or three jobs is not new to me. I don't look for rest, I look to make a difference. It just so happens though that my work and my work and my family life seem to blend so easily together. I work at home and at church. Almost everyday, I put in about 6-10 hours of work, if you can call it that.

Aside from 6-7pm each day (dinner with family), Sunday from 9pm through Friday 5pm are 100% fair game.

Friday from 5pm to Sunday at 9pm are family time and my vacations are my vacations...usually only 1 or 2 people have my contact info during those times for emergencies. I have to draw boundaries for work-life balance or I will burn out be no good to clients or my team.

I work every day... but I also play everyday. I enjoy my work and it is difficult to tell when I am doing it... or not. Our goal is to make our work so much fun that we won't be able to know for certain if we have retired.

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on client needs and staffing activities. At the very least, I spend 2-3 hours working remotely or just responding to emails, questions or other things on my iPhone. Work life balance is important but so are the needs of those that use our research services.

I check e-mail and do R&D as necessary, but that is about it.

I'll check e-mails several times, but otherwise reserve the weekend for family and church.

There are many activities associated with "work." On weekends, I do check email, web site statistics, respond to electronic purchases and usually post to my blog. However, these activities take less than one hour each day.

The other time is invested on maintaining personal life balance goals such as reconnecting with friends and family, having lunch or breakfast with my daughter, attending church, gardening or shoveling snow depending upon the time of year, reading and writing.

Human beings require re-energizing. What that looks like is different for each person as we are all unique individuals. However, I believe it is a conscious effort to have that balance between "work" and "weekends."

Like the others, I do work on the weekend although in a different manner. My weekend work is mainly just checking in to make sure that none of our clients need us at this moment and reviewing our proactive server and system monitoring. I also check email and tend to use facebook more on the weekend.

On occassion we will schedule work that requires or is likely to require major systems down on the weekend. But with new tools and technologies having to take systems down to perform upgrades or migrations is much less of an issue than it used to be.

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on client needs and staffing activities. At the very least, I spend 2-3 hours working remotely or just responding to emails, questions or other things on my iPhone. Work life balance is important but so are the needs of those that use our research services.

I believe that Gail Wallace and T Scott Gross have hit the nail on the head.

I think it depends what you classify as 'work'. AS an employee i did work on weekends if i had to, ie the job required it. As an owner of my own businss HR/employment law firm I am alway working, as working does not mean just being tied to your desk or the work that you do. Working includes looking for any opportunities that are in the intersts of business, whether that is making effective contacts, loking at recruitment opportunities, sourcing new work, savings costs, gebnerating more revenue etc etc.

It is the Stephen Covey idealism about being proactive and the other 6 efffective habits. You could be at social function and come across an opportunity that you wil not ecen realise uis an oportunity of you are not switched on and working. I believe to should be in your blood and it can be grey where work starts and social ectivities end. Where work and play begin to merge it is like getting dressed in the morning you dont even really need to consciously think about it. It just happens, but it requires conditioning.

In answer to your question, yes i do work weekends, and also late evenings and somtimes even in my sleep!!... and to grow my buiness and improve my personal and profesional life i think it is the way to go.

Hope this helps.

In one capacity or another, I work everyday. I catch-up on emails and correspondence late at night and spend an hour reading business related material early in the morning. My partner and I discuss business during non traditional work hours, usually in the evening or on the weekends, freeing us up to concentrate on our customers and vendors during their normal business hours. Our flexible schedule allows us the freedom to take time off when we need it, without feeling that we are neglecting our business.