The key is to increase your skills, value and network. That gives you options. A few hours of specialised freelance work can sometimes generate more value than a full day spent looking busy. The remaining time can then be invested in building other income streams.
Walk into any UK office at 3:47pm on a Tuesday and you'll see the actual cost of a 9-5.
Half the room is on their second or third coffee of the afternoon. Three people are stuck in a Teams call they didn't want to join. Two are scrolling LinkedIn pretending to read messages. One person has been staring at the same Excel sheet since 2:30.
Nobody is producing anything useful and everybody is exhausted.
This is the part nobody warned you about — the eight hours a day where you're being slowly drained by a job that isn't even busy.