I apologise if any of this comes across as very ungrateful or boastful, but I thought this would be the best place to air some thoughts I'm having about a new job I have.
The job I am doing is very basic. It essentially involves doing some data entry and emailing people. That's pretty much it. The person who did it before me was old and wanted to retire, and wasn't hugely computer literate. As a result, I've found I can do the work they were doing in less than half the time. When I was shadowing them before taking the roll on fully, they took like an hour to send one email. Since they've left, I've automated a few things, and just found so many ways to speed the job up. It means I am probably not only getting their work done in less time, but actually doing more work in that time. There's been a noticeable increase in the speed at which tasks are completed, for instance.
All of this essentially means that a job that is a full-time contract could easily be squeezed into maybe two or three days of work. I often find myself just kind of killing time and going over things several times just for something to do. The job is also predominantly WFH so it's not as if I have to look busy. So far, I've been taking advantage of this by doing other stuff with my day once I've done all the necessary tasks. I've been running, cycling, seeing friends, reading, etc.
This probably sounds like the absolute dream, but I have this quite intense internalised guilt/anxiety around it all. The other day I was out on a run and couldn't stop thinking “I need to get home by 4 really so I can do another hour or so of work otherwise it feels like I'm really taking these people for a ride”. I got home before four and, despite having been away from my desk for nearly 90 minutes, there was one email to reply to and nothing else to do.
So, essentially, I am finding it hard to make peace with the fact I have a job which is very cushy and doesn't actually require full-time hours and that I shouldn't feel bad about using the extra time to do other things. Ultimately, that's the fault of the employers. I even think they kind of know that it's a bit of a BS job in some ways. Like, they kind of know it's not taking me all of the contracted hours and are incredibly relaxed. So it isn't as if I am anxious about getting caught, it's honestly just this internalised work ethic which I've had instilled in me from quite a young age. I just feel as if I should be productive between the hours of 9 and 5.
Now, I kind of know intellectually that this is BS. But it's quite hard to actually feel that and put it into practice if that makes sense. I was wondering if anyone had ever been in a similar position or had some essays/resources I could read exactly about how work is not something that needs to define your life or time.
Thankfully, I have a side project coming up which I am hoping will take up more of my time and I am aiming to do that during my working hours. But I still feel as if that shouldn't have to be the case. I should feel totally relaxed with working like three/four hours a day and then just going off and doing whatever the hell I want to. But strangely it isn't that simple… It's just really made me think about how internalised attitudes towards work are and how I feel as if I'm failing in some sense or being lazy.
Edit: some typos and cleaning up syntax