Abstract
Do you manage time, or does time manage you? Drawing on the literature on time management and temporal structuring, we empirically explore the temporal relationships between individual knowledge workers and their environment in remote work. The data include interviews, reflection diaries, and email explanations. Based on an inductive data analysis, we found that knowledge workers are commonly managed by “time” (the dominant yet problematic organizational time norm) in remote work, unless they take actions to regain control over it. We identify three prime factors behind being managed by “time”: frequent calendar bookings, ad hoc tasks, and blurred work-life boundaries. Whereas the actions to regain control of time include: time blocking, strategic “gap-filling”, self-scheduling and forming routines, and synchronizing with the home dimension. We further summarize our contribution to the time management and temporal structuring literature into a conceptual model of the temporal relationships between individual knowledge workers and their environment in remote work.