F-01 · Where the Week Goes
How much of the work week do knowledge workers spend searching for information?
The most-cited studies put it at 19 to 25 percent of the work week, or about 9 to 10 hours. Across all five studies the estimates run from about 5 to 15 hours a week, because each one defines searching a little differently.
19–25% of the work week, about 9 to 10 hours
Across all 5 studies: 5–15 hours a week.
- Medium confidence
- 5 primary sources
- 2012 to 2025
- Last checked
Every study on one scale
Shaded: 19–25% of the week Dashed: all five studies One figure
Chart values as text
- Scale: hours a week. Shaded range: 19–25% of the week; dashed, all five studies: 4.9 h to 15 h.
- McKinsey Global Institute (2012): 8.8 h (19%)
- Atlassian (2025): 10 h (25% of 40 h)
- Glean / Harris Poll (2022): 2 h a day (10 h)
- Qatalog / Cornell (2021): 59 min a day (4.9 h)
- Coveo (2025): 3 h a day (15 h)
Why medium confidence: Three independent studies agree on 19 to 25 percent, but all five are self-reported surveys, and two vendor surveys sit well below and above that cluster.
Sources
| Study | Creator | Year | Sample | Method | Figure | Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The social economy: Unlocking value and productivity through social technologies | McKinsey Global Institute, using IDC survey data | 2012 | Managers and professionals in IDC's 2009 survey; sample size not stated | Re-analysis of IDC's self-reported time-use survey | 19% of the week (8.8 of 46.5 hours) “19 percent of working hours trying to track down information needed to complete tasks” | mckinsey.com ↗ Archived copy ↗ |
| The State of Teams 2025 | Atlassian Teamwork Lab | 2025 | 12,000 knowledge workers and 200 Fortune 1000 executives in the US, UK, Australia, India, Germany and France | Online survey, self-reported | 25% of the workweek “Executives and teams alike spend a quarter of the workweek searching for information” | atlassian.com ↗ |
| Hybrid Workplace Habits & Hangups | Glean, survey by The Harris Poll | 2022 | 1,043 employed US adults | Online survey, December 2021, self-reported. Glean sells enterprise search. | At least 2 hours a day, or 25% of the workweek, looking for documents, information or people “spend, on average, at least two hours a day” | businesswire.com ↗ Archived copy ↗ |
| Workgeist Report '21 | Qatalog with Cornell University's Ellis Idea Lab | 2021 | Three surveys of about 1,000 remote-working professionals each, US and UK | Online surveys, March 2021, self-reported. Counts only searching inside work apps. Qatalog sells a work hub. | 59 minutes a day finding information trapped in apps and tools “up to 5 hours a week, just trying to find what we need” | qatalog.com ↗ Archived copy ↗ Qatalog is now part of ClickUp and no longer hosts the report; the archived copy is the original PDF. |
| EX Relevance Report 2025: The Search for Relevance | Coveo, survey by Arlington Research | 2025 | 4,000 people who use a computer for work at companies with 5,000 or more staff, US and UK | Online survey, self-reported. Coveo sells AI search. | 3 hours a day searching for information (3.6 hours in the 2022 edition) “an average of three hours daily searching for information” | coveo.com ↗ |
How many hours a day do people spend looking for information?
About 1.8 to 2 hours a day in the main cluster: McKinsey's 8.8 hours a week over 5 days, and Glean's at least 2 hours a day. The full spread runs from about 1 hour a day (Qatalog, inside work apps only) to 3 hours a day (Coveo).
Numbers you may have seen
These figures circulate widely. Here is what the original source says.
- McKinsey: 19.8% of the week is spent searching for information. The report says 19 percent, and "nearly 20 percent" in its summary. The figure 19.8% does not appear in it.
- IDC: knowledge workers spend 15 to 35% of their time searching, or 2.5 hours a day. The 2.5 hours was a working assumption IDC used to model costs in 2001. The 15 to 35% rolls up older studies that are not named, so neither figure traces back to a measurement.
- Gartner: professionals spend 47% of their time searching for information. Gartner's 2023 survey found that 47% of digital workers struggle to find the information they need. It counts people and gives no figure for time.
- Microsoft: 62% of time goes to searching for information. In Microsoft's 2023 Work Trend Index, 62% of people say they struggle with too much time spent searching. It is a share of people and gives no figure for time.
More from Where the Week Goes
- 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?
- F-074.6–5.7 hHow much time do people spend redoing work that already exists?
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