How much time do people spend redoing work that already exists?
Workers report losing about 4.6 to 5.7 hours a week to duplicated work, or 10 to 14 percent of a 40-hour week. Every figure is self-reported, and two of the three come from the same publisher.
- Medium confidence
- 3 primary sources
- 2018 to 2021
- Last checked
Every study on one scale
Chart values as text
- Scale: hours a week on duplicated work. Shaded range: 4.6–5.7 h.
- Asana 2019 (2019): 4 h 38 min
- Asana 2021 (2021): 4.5–5.2 h (13%)
- Panopto (2018): 5.68 h
Why medium confidence: Three reports agree closely, but two come from Asana with the same method, so there are only two independent creators, and every figure is self-reported in a vendor survey.
Sources
| Study | Creator | Year | Sample | Method | Figure | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anatomy of Work Index 2019 | Asana, survey by Sapio Research | 2019 | 10,223 knowledge workers in Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Japan, the UK and the US | Online survey, August to September 2019, self-reported. Asana sells work management software. | 4 hours 38 minutes a week duplicating work, more than 10% of the week “waste more than 10% of their time duplicating efforts” | resources.asana.com ↗ |
| Anatomy of Work Index 2021 | Asana, survey by Sapio Research | 2021 | 13,123 knowledge workers in seven countries | Online survey, October 2020, self-reported | 13% of time on work that has already been done, 236 hours a year “Teams are spending 13% of their time on work that's already been completed” | asana.com ↗ Archived copy ↗ Archived copy of the full 2021 report PDF. |
| Workplace Knowledge and Productivity Report | Panopto | 2018 | 1,001 US employees with at least 5 years of work experience | Online survey, self-reported. Panopto sells video knowledge-sharing software. | 5.68 hours a week reinventing the wheel and duplicating others' work “nearly 6 hours each week "reinventing the wheel" and duplicating other people's work” | assets.panopto.com ↗ |
Which countries lose the most time to duplicated work?
In Asana's 2019 survey, Germany reported the most at 5 hours 9 minutes a week, followed by Australia and New Zealand (5 h 7 min), the UK (5 h 5 min) and the US (4 h 55 min). Japan reported the least at 2 hours 56 minutes.
How common is duplicated work across teams?
Half of knowledge workers (50%) have worked on a project and only later found out that another team was doing the same thing, according to Atlassian's 2024 survey of 5,000 knowledge workers.
| Study | Creator | Year | Sample | Method | Figure | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The State of Teams 2024 | Atlassian Teamwork Lab | 2024 | 5,000 knowledge workers and 100 Fortune 500 executives | Online survey. Measures how many people have experienced it, with no hours. | 50% have worked on a project another team was also doing “only later found out that another team was working on the same thing” | atlassian.com ↗ |
Numbers you may have seen
These figures circulate widely. Here is what the original source says.
- Panopto: workers lose 5.3 hours a week waiting for information or recreating existing knowledge. In the report, 5.31 hours is time spent waiting for colleagues' knowledge. Duplicating work is a separate 5.68 hours, and the report says the two overlap and cannot be added.
- Asana: 209 hours a year on duplicated work, 103 hours in unnecessary meetings, 352 hours talking about work. These blog figures mix editions. 209 hours is the 2019 duplication figure (2021 says 236), and we found the 352 hours in neither the 2019 nor the 2021 report.
- IDC: reworking information takes 15% of knowledge workers' time. The 15% is an assumption inside a cost model of a hypothetical 1,000-person company (Feldman, KMWorld, 2004). No one measured it.
More from Where the Week Goes
- F-0119–25%How much of the work week do knowledge workers spend searching for information?
- F-0253–61%How much of the work day goes to coordinating work rather than doing it?
- F-033–18 hHow many hours a week do people spend in meetings, and how much of it is wasted?
- F-0420–26 minHow long does it take to get back to a task after an interruption?
- F-0513–28%How much of the work week do knowledge workers spend on email and chat?
- F-063–4 hHow much time do people lose switching between apps at work?
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