For your information, my official working time is from 8.30 am to 5.30 pm with lunch break interval from 1.00 to 2.00 pm. But, I normaly go home between 6.00 - 7.00 pm and hopefully reach home within an hour or more.
Within this limited space of time, I will try and do as much work as I can. However, there are two activities that further minimize and reduce my working time. The first one is "meeting" and the second is "interacting with suppliers". Let me reveal today as an example...
Everyday (including today), I have a minimum of 2 meetings which are held from 9.30 - 10.00 am (Maintenance/Project Meeting) and 11.30 am -1.00 pm (Production/Coordination Meeting). Total time spent for those meetings = 2 hours. That's why sometimes when my wife called, I have to say: "I'm in a meeting, I'll call you back later, honey..."
Upon reaching 1.00 pm, I'll have a break. This is my free time where I'll spend it either for lunch or short nap or surfing for info in the internet. Today, I did some surfing.
After lunch break, a supplier supplying filter sock came and met me. We talked and discussed few things regarding the filter sock problem and solution. Frankly speaking, I don't really know about filter sock. Therefore, anything that came out from the suppliers mouth, I just absorb it.
Later, another supplier selling bleaching earth came and beg us to purchase the product from him. We have not been ordering his bleaching earth since last November and he claimed that his business is geting from bad to worse. We have our reasons for not ordering the bleaching earth.
Meeting those 2 suppliers already cost me another 2 hours where I resumed working at 4.00 pm hours. Let me just simplify the situation:
Total official working hour = 8 hours
Time spent for meeting = 2 hours
Time spent meeting with suppliers = 2 hours
Balance time to do other work (preparing report(s), scheduling, inventory, monitoring plant and oil quality, phone calls, communicating with downlines etc) = 4 hours
To tell you the truth, 4 hours are sincerely not enough to do or complete the jobs. That's why most of the time I have to go back late. But I don't want to go back very late because the rate of work productivity has decrease. And I leave 50 km from my work place.