I frequently have all of my work completed, and I am unfortunately not allowed to work from home. This means I spend a lot of time sitting at my desk scrolling social media, because there’s nothing that needs done. I feel like I’m wasting my time, even more than work already wasted the best hours of the day. How do you fill that downtime with something that is personally valuable, but not disruptive or noticeable enough that you’d get in trouble?
Research something non-work related (usually owls)
Plan a vacation or home project
Study music/theory/plugins/production or play on my mini keyboard
Make friends with other contractors outside of my company
Go out and enjoy the fall weather
Read an ebook or enjoy an audiobook. I started Discworld. I’m down 4 so far out of 41 I think it is.
Basically stuff I’d want to do anyway that requires little or no equipment. Down time is my time. The only thing that stinks is an open office with no real privacy. People don’t seem to care, but it makes it less enjoyable for me. I’ve been here 2 years now and no one has ever said anything.