The Busy Trend: Montana Tops Work Hours Increase In Latest Study

If you live in Montana and feel like you're working more than you used to, you probably are.

The other day someone asked how I was and I replied, "Busy." This has become a standard response lately. I used to say, "I'm doing fine," or the grammatically correct, "I'm doing well," but my default response now is "busy."

For a while, I thought it was just me, but I noticed it was getting really hard to make plans with other people. Not just because of my schedule, but because of theirs.

We asked our audience about work-life balance and how much free time they felt like they had and the message was clear: a lot of us are busy.

How Much Free Time Do You Have?

Related: Teens Can Make Musical Instruments Right Here in Missoula 

Not every comment was about not having enough free time. Some people who work four days a week shared how much they appreciate having three days off in a row. Someone else shouted out their employer saying "It's actually a perfect amount."

National Study of Working Hours: How Montana Ranks

But whether or not you feel like you have enough free time, one study shows that Montanans are working more, not just in general, but their increased work hours are more than any other state in the country.

The website Mixbook used Census Data to determine how many hours Americans are working and how it has changed over the last five years.

Montana is #1 for having the highest increase in hours worked per year at 31.2 hours, and when split into men and women, Montana men had the most increased hours. The biggest decrease in hours worked per year? Surprisingly, that was Wyoming.

Looks like Montanans need more work-life balance.