A recent report from Hubstaff indicates that most workers have only two to three hours of uninterrupted focus time each day. The 2026 Global Benchmarks Report analyzed work patterns from over 140,000 employees across 17,000 organizations and found that increased meetings and scheduling issues are major factors reducing focus time.
The study reveals that the average worker now attends twice as many meetings as they did two years ago, with organizations conducting six times more meetings overall. According to Jared Brown, CEO of Hubstaff, “Our data proves that teams aren’t failing at productivity; they’re working in systems that constantly disrupt focus.” He added, “When a worker’s day is fragmented by meetings, messages and tool switching, real focus is out of reach. If leaders want better performance and real returns on their AI investments, they need to treat focus time as a core operating principle, not simply a personal responsibility.”
The report highlights that 25% of meetings are scheduled during early to mid-morning hours—periods identified as optimal for high-intensity work without distractions. In addition to frequent meetings and notifications, employees are also required to use multiple digital tools daily. On average, workers interact with 18 different apps per day. Those in sales/marketing, customer success, administration, and HR roles often use more than 20 apps daily.
Hybrid teams experience the least amount of deep focus time at just 31% of their working hours compared to an average of 39% among all workers. Fully remote teams reported 41% of their hours in focused work while in-office teams reached up to 45%. Despite this lower percentage of focus time, hybrid teams were found to be more engaged with artificial intelligence applications—spending about 11% of their day using AI tools—while fully remote or office-based teams spend only between 1% and 2%.
