Something to doWorking with others
Keep open hours for questions
A micro habit for staying generous with your time without giving away your whole day
Why it’s worth your time
Being the person people come to is valuable, but answering whenever questions land means your own work lives in the gaps. A known daily window keeps you generous and gives the rest of the day back. The people asking stop guessing whether now is a bad time.
How to set up office hours at work
You’ll come away with a daily window for questions that everyone on your team knows about.
We’ll turn this into a checklist you can tick off.
- Pick a time that suits the people who ask.
Look at who comes to you most and what their day looks like, including their time zone. Thirty minutes to an hour at the same time every day tends to work better than a longer window a few times a week.
MonTueWedThuFri9 am11 am1 pm3 pm5 min, yours5 pm0.3 hrs a month, for you4 hrs a year you didn’t have beforeSame slot so it stops being a decision - Put it where people can find it.
A recurring open event on your calendar, a standing video link, or a pinned line in your team channel. Anyone should be able to see it without asking you.
- Tell people what it's for.
When it is, that any question counts, and what to do if something truly can't wait.
To: your teamStarting day, I'm keeping time open every day for questions, on where: a call link, my desk, this channel. Anything is fair game, big or small.
Outside that time I'll be slower to reply, so for anything urgent, how to reach you.
Bring half-formed questions too. That's what the time is for.
Swap the highlighted parts for your thing. Works on Slack, in email, or said out loud. - Show up every day, even when nobody comes.
For the first couple of weeks, people are checking whether it's real. Use quiet windows for your own small tasks, and stay easy to interrupt.
- Point early questions to the window, kindly.
When something that can wait arrives outside the window, offer the window instead of a brush-off.
You“Can we pick this up in my question time this afternoon? I'll be all yours then.”Tip: If it genuinely can't wait, answer it. The window is a promise to them, not a rule to enforce.
Good moments for this: daily, at the same timewhen you become the go-to person for somethingwhen someone new joins the team
We’ll turn this into a checklist you can tick off.
Keep going with Truest
Small actions add up. Truest helps you find the next thing worth doing, make the space to do it, and keep a record of your progress. It’s a private place to work on your career, and it’s yours, not your employer’s.
- It actually happensDo it now, and you’ve invested in your career today.
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Anything else we can help you with this week?
Making it work for you
Every workplace is different. Here’s what to think about before you start, and what might get in the way.
Things to think about
What are they trying to get done, and what makes waiting hard? Their answers may move your window, or show that one person needs a decision from you rather than an answer, which is a different conversation.
What might make this harder
Give them extra time for their first few weeks. The window is for the steady state, not for onboarding.
Questions people ask
How do I stop being interrupted with questions at work?
Give questions a home. A daily window when anyone can drop in, announced clearly, lets most questions wait a few hours without anyone feeling brushed off.
What are office hours at work?
A set time, usually daily or weekly, when you're openly available for questions. It's best known from teaching, and it suits anyone people rely on for answers.
How long should office hours be?
Thirty minutes to an hour a day works for many people. Start small and adjust to how many questions actually come.
Why this works, and where it comes from
Being the go-to person rarely feels expensive in the moment. Each question is reasonable, most take a couple of minutes, and the person asking is usually stuck. The cost shows up at the end of the week, when you've answered forty questions and your own work hasn't moved. Plenty of people in this spot end up doing their real work in the evenings, without ever deciding to.
Office hours are a familiar habit from teaching: a professor can't answer every student whenever they knock, so they publish a time when the door is open. Truest's take keeps that and changes the emphasis. You set the window around the people who need you, their time zones and their busiest moments, and you treat it as a promise to them rather than a wall for you.
From the asker's side, what matters is getting unblocked and not feeling like a nuisance. A known time gives them both; they're no longer reading your face or your status for signs that now is bad. Some questions also get better for waiting a few hours. People solve their own, or arrive with a sharper version, and when several people bring the same one, you've learned what the team is missing.
Some questions shouldn't wait for any window: a customer in trouble, a live incident, anything touching safety. Those get answered now. And if you're new to a team and still building relationships, being around matters more than a tidy schedule; set up a window once people know you. For managers, open hours sit alongside your one-on-ones, not in place of them.
Other simple things to consider
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An exercise written by Truest, based on our experience. Last updated September 25, 2026. We sell a career membership; where that’s relevant above, we say so.