Time Work by Overworked Professionals: Strategies in Response to the Stress of Higher Status

How are professionals responding to the time strains brought on by the stress of their higher status jobs? Qualitative data from professionals reveal (a) general acceptance of the emerging temporal organization of professional work, including rising time demands and blurred boundaries around work/nonwork times and places, and (b) time work as strategic responses to work intensification, overloads, and boundarylessness. We detected four time-work strategies: prioritizing time, scaling back obligations, blocking out time, and time shifting of obligations. These strategies are often more work-friendly than family-friendly, but blocking out time and time shifting suggest promising avenues for work-time policy and practice.