If there's not enough work in an 8-hour day for you to account for, is that your fault or the company you work for's fault? Are you just working too fast? Maybe ask your supervisor for more work to keep you busy all 8 hours. They'll love that! And it'll make you look like a go-getter, self-starter, management material.

Or just fudge. I see no other options, do you?

What are you actually doing in those other three hours? Is it legit work overhead type stuff or are you 'distracted' and doing non-work related stuff? Is that a source of guilt for you? I know I can procrastinate and get distracted by non-work stuff. But I also know I am really on GOOD for about 5-6 hours a day of real productive work and get mentally burned out beyond that.

You also sound like a perfectionist (that can be a good thing--not meant as an insult) so you might consider cutting yourself some slack. I don't think there's anything wrong with admitting that there's a certain amount of overhead attached to your productive hours. Maybe just attach them to your billable hours and leave it at that.

Best regards,

I can relate to your struggles. My problem is that I am in a performance driven position at work and when the numbers are down I feel overwhelmed and become less productive. I actually feel so much anxiety that I can't think straight which causes me to shut down at work. I have not found an effective way to cope with this yet.

Hey everyone, thanks for your responses...

I think its 50/50 exhaustion and distraction. If I don't get the right amount of sleep and eat at the right time, I'm off kilter for the rest of the day (It totally sucks to be like this, BTW).

Either that, or I get distracted by something that I feel an overwhelming need to figure out RIGHT NOW! which I guess is more of a willpower issue? Because, really, the world doesn't end because I don't have a recipe for dinner, or I don't know if it's going to rain this weekend or not. But it's almost a compulsion where in one breath I am working contently and the next I am off looking up the difference between shade and sun grown coffee beans. (true story!)

Maybe the exhaustion leads to the distraction? Most of the time I'm fine in the mornings, and in the afternoons I'm more likely to be mentally checked out.

Blah...I know I'm a perfectionist in that I really try to do my best. I don't freak out (too much) if I make a mistake or anything. I just was looking for some ways to do better. I like my work, and they do right by their employees. I just want to feel like I'm doing right by them.

I was just wondering what other people do to keep their concentration in everyday situations.

What I do to keep my concentration: Well, it helps if I find the work interesting. I free-lance, do wedding photography and videography. I find that work at least somewhat interesting. The shoots are a full-on hustle for 5-6 hours, so I don't time to be bored and there's always something beautiful to point the camera at. Editing is also fairly artistic, so I'm passionate about getting a still image's color and exposure just right, or about crafting a compelling sequence of moments in video editing with sound and music.

I have a second job, security officer, mostly gatehouses at residential communities, that I work whenever free-lance activities are slow or nonexistent, and I don't have to tell you that job doesn't interest me at all. My mood fluctuates between boredom and annoyance. I zone out for hours.

I use list, written check boxes whatever applies that day but I keep scribbling new lists. I force myself to pause breathe and think through what has to be done, prioritize. It can be hard but when I can get even a starting edge the anxiety eases.

And I give myself permission to run things loose to not be 100% overachiever perfect on those days when I can't be when I don't have that do give

Keep external environment out of your internal space.

Imagine a dog and a cat and how each behaves when their human leaves home for the day to go to work.

A dog gets anxious because he allows this change in his external environment to enter into his internal environment: Oh no! Human is gone! Im alone! My security and my entertainment is not here! So the dog might chew up the sofa, go around the house barking at the door and every window hoping human will hear and come back. Dog gets so anxious he might lose bladder and bowel control and is even too wound up to eat.

A cat couldnt care less that youve gone. He doesnt allow this change in his external environment to disturb his internal environment in the least. He finds a quiet place where the dog cant bother him and sleeps for hours. Gets up to snack a little, drink some water, maybe uses the litter box, sits in the window to sun himself for a bit, torments the dog because he knows its going crazy, and then takes another nap. The change in his external environment has no effect on him what-so-ever.

The better you get at keeping the external out of your internal, the sooner anxiety will ebb away. And the more you can make this a new habit, instead of the old habit of dreading and fighting anxiety, the less power anxiety will have over you. Once the new habit is established and you quit the old habit of struggling to hang on to sanity, the brain will soon rewire itself and anxiety will be kept at bay, AND you will probably even become happier as well as calmer.

Scrooge...great advice and example of the cat and the dog, brilliant.