Andriy Onufriyenko/Getty
How often do you find yourself working early in the morning, late at night, or even on weekends? Whether you're responding to emails, checking reports, or attending meetings, the workday often seems like it never ends. That's especially true in this age of remote and hybrid workers. Well, at least one major tech giant apparently feels your pain.
In a new special report entitled "Breaking down the infinite workday," Microsoft describes how and why the never-ending workday plagues many professionals. Released on Tuesday, this special report is a follow-up to the company's recent "2025 Work Trend Index Annual Report." In that one, Microsoft explored the concept of a Frontier Firm in which work is managed by hybrid teams of AI agents and humans.
Also: 5 ways to turn AI's time-saving magic into your productivity superpower
With the new report, the company analyzed how and when people use different Microsoft 365 products, such as Outlook, Teams, and Office. The goal was to map out the time and duration of a typical workday. In its anonymized analysis, Microsoft found a roadblock to productivity in the form of a seemingly infinite workday. Here's how that plays out for many professionals.
The never-ending workday
The workday often starts at 6 a.m., with 40% of the people reviewing email to prioritize the tasks for the day ahead. The average worker gets around 117 emails each day, most of them skimmed in less than 60 seconds. (Keep that in mind the next time you send an email to someone.) Though one-to-one emails have declined by 5% over the past year, mass emails hitting 20 or more recipients are up by 7%.
By 8 a.m., Microsoft Teams takes over for email as the main method for communicating. Here, the average worker gets around 154 Teams messages each day. Across the world, that number represents an average gain of 6% over the past year. However, in regions like Central and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, the increase surges to 20%. In the UK and South Korea, the jump in the number of messages is 15%.
Also: Microsoft's new AI skills are coming to Copilot+ PCs - including some for all Windows 11 users
After tackling all the initial emails and messages, it's time to focus on some hardcore work. Ahh, not so fast. Here comes the meetings.
... continue reading