This study focuses on one important alternative instrument for measuring today's working time arrangements: time-use or "time diary" studies, which provide a detailed breakdown of working time hour-by-hour and day-by-day. It uses microdata obtained from time-use studies to create a classification of working time arrangements and then analyses how daily work patterns are organized in four countries: Canada, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. The results of the study offer some important insights into the potential advantages and disadvantages of time-use data for obtaining a better understanding of those working time arrangements which are emerging.