Public accountant Alessia Montanaro in Austin, 30, is concluding her second peak season this year. Since September she has put in up to 60 hours a week, sometimes until 11 p.m., and often spends Sundays working from home. She has grown accustomed to these rapid pushes that come with tax time, and says weekday requests from colleagues and managers pull her in several directions.
That lines up with Owl Labs' snapshot: nearly half often log time on Sundays. Here is how it breaks down - 21% say the day is all or nearly all work, 24% often do a few hours, 11% quickly check messages without really working, 18% rarely work, and 26% never do.
Six years after many office jobs moved home during the pandemic, work is leaking into more hours. Microsoft's 2025 look at the "infinite workday" found chat messages sent outside the Monday to Friday 9 to 5 window climbed 15% year over year, to an average of 58 per user. Among people who work weekends, nearly 20% check email before noon on both days, and over 5% are back in their inboxes on Sunday nights.
Why the weekend spillover? During core hours, employees get interrupted about every two minutes by meetings, emails, or chats, Microsoft says. Owl Labs reports 38% feel meeting fatigue, chiefly due to excessive length and sheer volume of meetings. A quiet Sunday can help people get more done, says Owl Labs CEO Frank Weishaupt, but it can also signal that the Monday through Friday stretch is loaded with busywork.
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Weishaupt points to more "microshifting" - Owl Labs' term for working outside the standard 9 to 5 - as people swap some weekday time for short weekend bursts. That can help parents, caregivers, and anyone who needs to step out midweek. Account manager Kylie Gonzalez, 29, logs in on Sundays from home if she used time during the week for doctor visits, school pickup, or other events. She's careful not to go much past about an hour on weekends and is mindful not to let it become a habit, noting, "Some companies may take advantage of that fact and add more to your plate because they see so much is being done."
The prep that used to happen at the office on Mondays is sliding earlier. "My Sunday evening feels awful because I'm just thinking about Monday and all the work that I didn't finish on Friday," says Dallas strategy consultant Tobi Collins, 28. Doing a bit of work before Monday eases her anxiety about the coming week. In Philadelphia, Dina Otero, 42, previously devoted Sundays to clearing emails, even immediately after vacations, believing it would give her a head start. She later realized it was anxiety and "my own way of thinking that I had control over things that I really did not."
The job backdrop matters. Weishaupt says firms telegraph layoffs in advance, are cutting back on hiring, and are upping what they expect from artificial intelligence. In that climate, some people may put in extra hours to feel more secure - "doing anything they can to hug that job, and that may mean that they're just working a lot more, Sunday included." His caution is direct: "If 40 hours become 60 hours, you know you're going to have burnout, you're going to have frustration, and then when that pendulum swings the other way, you're going to have a lot of churn."
LaToya Allen, 45, in Washington, D.C., now runs a boutique tech consultancy and says entrepreneurs expect to work "pretty much seven days a week." For traditional office roles, she is doubtful that Sunday activity changes outcomes: "Just because your manager sees you working on Slack on a Sunday, what does that matter?" The bottom line - the data points to an always-on rhythm tied to a cautious labor market, rising meeting load, and shifting schedules, with risks of burnout and churn as companies signal layoffs, hire less, and raise expectations around artificial intelligence.
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