Working Out

I generally work three days in the office, two days from home. Recently, I was working on things that necessitated my being there in person, so I worked Monday through Friday, all five days in the office. The week felt long, unending. I kept thinking, 'Tomorrow's Friday,' but there was always another day. I had expected to feel spent at the end of the week, ready to return to the hybrid schedule, but instead I felt sort of delighted. Yes, the week was long, and wasn't that great?
We're always complaining that life goes by so quickly, that we don't have enough time; look, it's summer again, how can that be? I found myself amazed at the way time seemed to elongate during my week in the office. Yes, the days seemed to be moving more slowly, but isn't that what we want? Isn't that the point?
Hybrid work, for many of us, emerged from Covid lockdowns. It's been several years that I've been working this split schedule, and while it felt novel back in 2020, lately it's felt humdrum. I've become so accustomed to the tempo of the week — Monday work from home, three days in the office, work from home Friday — that changing it up made the days feel strange, like new countries to explore.
You might say, sure, I want my life to feel longer, but I want more leisure time, not an interminable workweek. I get it. Maybe part of my satisfaction with this schedule came from not having to squeeze all my office-specific work into three days. But it's intriguing to think that reorganizing your week can reorient your relationship with time.
Maybe the week felt longer because there was so much sameness to the daily routine. This is what people complain about! Monotony! We want to mix things up! But I think the real reason the office week felt longer, in a good way, is that it felt richer, more textured. On the two days a week I normally work from home, I see a very limited number of people. I have fewer social interactions. I'm less likely to go out after work. There's less information to process, less excitement, and that makes the days, in a way, seem less significant. I spend less time thinking about the work-from-home days, so they make up less of my larger life narrative.
Five days in the office, by contrast, was five days of commuting with the fascinating (if occasionally maddening) characters on mass transit, seeing colleagues, coffee and lunch dates, happy hours. There was more content, more surprise, more to think about. Sure, there were days when I wished I could sleep a little later and not rush out the door to catch a train. But mostly the days felt like generous canvases to fill with the interesting activity of just living.
I realize I may sound like a corporate stooge, advocating that people buckle down and get back to the office. But I think you can achieve this kind of time elongation without giving up remote work. If you feel, as I did, that those home workdays were becoming sort of boring, suboptimal entries in the logbook of how you're spending your time, you can try varying your schedule. Work from the library, or a cafe. Make a concerted effort to meet a friend for lunch, or to get dressed and go out after working in your pajamas all day. Mess with the format of your days. Make them feel larger.
I'm sure after enough time working five days a week in the office, I'd get used to the rhythm and start to feel as if time was going by too quickly again. When I told a colleague I'd been in every day of the week, he said it sounded 'absolutely grueling.' And I'll admit I'm not sure I'll do it every week. But I'm definitely going to continue to fiddle with my schedule, to keep things interesting, to keep trying to slow time down.
📺 'Adults' (Wednesday): A 'Friends' for an extremely online generation, this new FX series finds five recent college graduates crashing at a borrowed house in Queens. An ode to the adventure and general incompetence of young adulthood, the single-camera sitcom stars an ensemble of emerging actors. (Downtown luminary Julia Fox drops in midseason for a nicely madcap cameo.) Will this be the first great Gen Z comedy or simply a chance to see what happens when people stop being polite and start sharing a single bathroom?
Jalapeño Grilled Pork Chops
It's Memorial Day weekend! Which means it's time to uncover that grill, give those grates a good cleaning and make Eric Kim's jalapeño grilled pork chops. Marinated in a vibrant green purée of jalapeños, garlic, cilantro stems and rice vinegar, the pork takes on a tangy, spicy character that's amplified by a relish of jalapeño and red onion spooned on top. Eric's recipe is flexible; you can marinate the meat for as little as 30 minutes or leave it in the fridge overnight. And for those who don't have a grill, the pork is just as good cooked under your broiler until the edges turn brown and crisp. Serve it with tortillas or flatbread, and a big crunchy vegetable salad. Then put it on repeat all summer long.
The Hunt: An immigration lawyer traded Brooklyn for Jackson Heights, Queens, with $300,000 to spend. Which apartment did she choose? Play our game.
What you get for $500,000: A chalet-style house in Bartlett, N.H.; a condo in Royal Oak, Mich.; or a 1939 brick house in Minneapolis.
Travel: Spend 36 hours in Annapolis, Md.
Which sunscreen is best? Whichever one you will apply, and reapply, often. Health and grooming experts answer seven questions about protecting your skin.
A slice of Americana: Drive-in movie theaters are still thriving in some places. A photographer visited some to find whether they matched her memories.
Smart kitchen: Unsure how to store your condiments? Read an A-to-Z guide.
How to keep food from sticking to your grill
As you kick off the season of grilling this weekend, our experts have a few quick care and maintenance tips to keep your beloved grill in shape. You can check for gas leaks by spritzing a soap-water mixture and looking for bubbles. Then, get the grates super hot, and scrape them down with a grill brush. Follow that with another wipe-down with a wet rag to get rid of any remaining soot or debris. Lastly, give the clean grates a good oiling with a paper towel and some vegetable oil. (And if you're in need of a new grill entirely, we have recommendations for that, too, including a brand-new guide to griddles.) — Brittney Ho
Indianapolis 500: The most famous race in American motorsports is back. Here are a few names to follow as you watch the drivers speed around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway 200 times:
Sunday at 12:30 p.m. Eastern on FOX
Here is today's Spelling Bee. Yesterday's pangram was ideology.
Take the news quiz to see how well you followed this week's headlines.
And here are today's Mini Crossword, Wordle, Sudoku, Connections and Strands.
Thanks for spending part of your weekend with The Times. — Melissa
P.S. Our colleague Lauren Jackson wrote about the story behind Believing, her yearlong project reporting on the ways that belief shapes American life.
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