What do you do when you’re bored at work?

[Freaking0ut]

When it’s quiet and you’ve done every other thing you can think of and you’re bored off your tits and it’s only 10.16am, what do you do?!!

I need some ideas! Any good websites I can look at? What do I need to organise that I haven’t already?! Obvs it needs to be something that allows me to look busy 😬 otherwise I might shrivel up and die of boredom by 5pm

Reading Hansard and parliamentary inquiry reports and submissions can be interesting, and it looks official enough that you don’t need to hide your browser window from anyone nosy. Good one esp for those in the civil service as it’s really more of an investment in being well rounded than time wasting.

Also you can play something like countdown online, good for your brain.

I search sky scanner and dream of holidays.

We won’t be having one this year as ds1 is due beginning of August.

But we will be going back to Japan next year so I spend a lot of time looking at cherry blossoms and fun places to take kids in Kyoto 😆

Play solitaire, Instagram, Facebook. (Turned off my online status for this). Nosey at Rightmove, Tetris.....

i run a charity shop and sometimes it can be quite a while between customers. if i have done all the sorting pricing displaying etc that there is to do time can drag. i dont have a phone so i tend to take a book to read or my knitting or i buy one of the TAB mags do the puzzles and have a read of the awful stories in them

I used to find a new recipe and do an online food shop.
Also as pp said look for holidays. Print out things that i'd forget to do at home I used to make the most of the colour printer .
I used to go around the office cleaning out the mice, wiping down phones etc before I realised this just made it hugely obvious to everyone you haven't got much on. That's just like asking for the worst clients to be thrust on you by someone who has put them at the bottom of the pile

It wasn't often but the dull days really drag unless you have interests you can pick up.

Use the desktop Kindle app and read, or similarly download the pdf of a novel (looks like work!)

This could never happen in my job. It’s always busy and there are targets to hit. If you can’t prove your worth you’d be sacked.

Normally, I just go home, really. I'm on an overtime included contract and expected to make reasonable compensation for all the hours I put in beyond my contractual ones.

When I can't go home, I go to the kitchen and catch up with colleagues. It's always a good idea to look after your work relationships.

Longer periods: work on "should have done ages ago" stuff and/or catch up with one of my many bosses and figure out what new initiatives I could take on.

Seriously I never have time to be bored, it’s non stop. I’d never find time to be busy do nothing.

Read MN offline
Chat to work mates on messenger
Drink coffee
Pretend I have a meeting across the street

Oh yah life admin

Sounds really lame, but the thing I prize highly at every job I’ve ever done is my list of what my old boss used to call hospital jobs. The ones for when you are between projects.

When I moved to a new company last summer I lost all my hospital jobs, and i felt bereft without them. It took a good 6 months to investigate the system and processes in my new place and start my list. Interrupted by long periods of actually being busy.

I look for ways to automate our processes. Write instruction manuals for tasks or equiment, do the closedown paperwork for projects that are finished but no one has got round to shutting down properly. If I can’t find anything then I do some CPD stuff even if it’s just reading.

I re-wrote all our policies, updates brand guidelines, updated company email signatures and do a free online course from futurelearn.
None of those are my actual job

A short period of boredom,I sit and wait for the manic to begin again.Longer periods,which are like hens teeth,I sort out all the mess I don't normally have time to get to,or I study or search stuff ( work related and slightly relevant to job!) on the Internet.Or I go and laminate things - stuff I need to refer to which looks better laminated than as a scruffy bit of paper.
More bored than that? Read my book,or talk to colleagues if we are really that quiet!

It watch netflix and listen to podcasts.

I also write and enter short stories competions

Online courses. Improve excel etc skills. Speak to boss about future opportunities he can delegate to you and look online for the skills you need, I.e. project management, project back office support. Look at ways to streamline your role for when you will be busy again or save your company money. Ask if you can go and help another department, or go and learn about another part of the business by shadowing someone for a few days.

Free audiobooks on my library app when I have work that's easy and dull but necessary.

Open learn had some interesting courses k think as well. And I think some NHS courses are open to everyone.

This has never happened. Always something to do. To the extent I often feel like I'm drowning slowly in treacle. Then I get a bit on top of it, until the next crisis and it all goes to shit again.

I guess I'd have to resort to writing SOPs. Please God No.

I go on Google maps and grab the orange Street view guy and drop him anywhere in the world. If you drop him somewhere where it hasn't been mapped then it will put him as close as possible. I can waste plenty of time exploring Copenhagen, or snowy remote roads in Austria, or the lake District national park, or back alleys in london, or the sunny streets of Spain

If the MD is in I randomly open files and old emails to look busy. If he’s not I just faff about on my phone.

Not a problem in my job (NHS).

As we're usually stretched to the limit, if we had a quieter week we might celebrate by going out for lunch or coffee together rather than eating at desks while working. Do you have nice colleagues that you could kill time chatting to?

I have longer term project work that fits into the gaps between more urgent work, so I think it's been about 20 years since I actually had nothing to do.

I'm assuming you've already asked your manager if there is anything you could be doing, tidied your desk and caught up with the news/ social media / mumsnet.

Reorganise your banking. See if there are better current accounts out there for you / savings accounts / mortgage rates etc. Check energy deals and insurances

propertywoes that’s a great idea, def going to do that!

I think I will look for an online course that is related to my job so I am at least doing something mildly relevant in the downtime (as well as my food shop and sorting the bills )