Free Time

[susans]

When you have 15 minutes of actual free time or not much work, what do you do with it?   (besides check out DeskDemon!).  If you surf the web, is that wrong?   Would that be considered wrong in your company?  Should you be straighting your files.  Be honest!  If you play solitare let us know.

My answer, there is no downtime.  I am at my desk and working dilgently all day, every day!      Ok just kidding of course.  When I need that mental break.. I hate to admit it... I check out celebrity gossip (but it is on the US part of DeskDemon.. so "technically" I could in fact be working!)  I am lucky and really enjoy all aspects of this job, so if there is down time I do some searches to see if I get any ideas for new topics, articles or features.  That is actually fun to me.  I also go out and get my non fat latte from Starbucks when I have a few free minutes.  I really dont play solitare but once in a great while I will play Shark Attack or Bejeweled.  What about you?

[geminigirl]

Free time?  What's free time?

Just kidding!  I had so much free time at my last position that I left because I was bored witless.

At this job (here just over a year now, and still loving it!) there's much less free time (hooray!) but on the rare occasions that there is I will catch up on "personal" emails or even more occasionally read an article from an online newspaper.  And see what's happening on DD, of course ...

I set myself a massive task at the beginning of the year to go through my predecessor's files - 6 filing cabinets' worth - and properly organise them and also to change the actual files she used.  She liked the type of files that joined together concertina-like which is hell on nails and also difficult to slot another file into without kerfaffing (technical term) around unlinking them.  About 4 drawers in I decided to weed out the dross etc.  I thought it would take 2 weeks.  It's now the last day of April and I'm only on Cabinet 5.  You would not believe the stuff she would file... "the meeting next Tuesday has been brought forward to 11am" - and empty envelopes.  I kid you not!!

Also, I will never have to order another paperclip or one of those plastic sleeve thingamijigs.

So, most of my free time is given over to that.  Luckily, it's one of those things that is easy enough to pick up and drop.

[diamondlady]

I do get pockets of down time, and as you can see, I do check in here quite often, I don't know what I would do without my daily dose of DD! LOL!

Aside from that if I am really bored whent he boss is away, I have been known to play solitare only when all of my work is done, and surf the net for something specific or check in on a couple of fan clubs that I belong to during the day to see when tickets go on sale for the next concert.  I also check my private emails from home.  There are days when I don't have room to move, and on those days, I let things slide, and keep busy until all my jobs are done.  If I am in a hurry up and wait mode, I do check in here.

I'm not saying I am online all day, but if I have a half hour to kill in between projects, I see nothing wrong with doing a bit of surfing so long as it's not something illegal.  It doesn't hurt, and my boss has been known to surf a bit as well, heck he bought his big screen tv online here at the office. Granted it was at the end of the day, but he did all his research here at work.  So it doesn't hurt anything so long as it doesn't disrupt productivity.  

When I really have loads of down time, I will go thru my computer and clean out old emails, pictures (which I have a ton as my hubby's favorite hobby lately of taking loads of pictures), old emails that I don't need anymore, just clogging up space.  



Diamondlady
Peer Moderator

[itsme_calista]

I don't get a great deal of down time but when I do I tend to surf a bit .. I do try to keep it professionally related ie DD or business news or self development.  

I try not to surf to much .. I have a pc at home and tend to spend the evenings playing on  that.

I've also taken my MOS book into work so I can play with the software a bit and strengthen my learning.

Callie

[misslynn]

I don't take official breaks (aside from lunch) so when I need a mental break, I'll browse the web for a couple minutes just to clear my mind.  I never play solitaire or games, just feels weird for me to do that at the office.  I'll sometimes check my personal e-mail on my PDA.

[ozbound]

You caught me, using my "free time" on DD!
Another thing I do to pass "down time" is taking some of the online courses that our company offers. I've found some of those to be quite useful. As far as web surfing, once in awhile I'll check the news on MSN but that's about it... we have quite an extensive firewall here so a lot of web surfing is not possible. (I am usually able to "google" a new word or concept I want to familiarize myself with though--such as, a couple weeks ago I ran across "Kaizen" and wanted to know what that was.) We don't have any games installed on our computers, either!
I also e-mail my friend/ex-office mate often just to catch up on how our day is going/how our weekend went kind of stuff.
Pretty soon it will be summer and then there will be precious little down time here, though, if any at all!