What would you do at work if you had nothing to do?

[DancingTurtle]

This is me tomorrow, 9 'til 4. I have access to an office where I can be on my own and would have about 2 seconds warning of someone coming in.

I occasionally have lulls as well. If I'm at work, I check prayer times then nip into the prayer room and meditate/aka nap, if I know the room's free. Door has a lock as well

I'm on the wind down as well.

Lol. I'd do some shopping online, book a holiday, do some "life admin".

I'd tell your boss you are being paid for too many hours work and ask him to up your workload.

I automated most of my job. Couldn't care less if I am not 100% occupied.

I'd tell your boss you are being paid for too many hours work and ask him to up your workload

I have already taken on a lot more than I was initially employed to do and what my colleagues do.

But this isn't technically true - you're paid to work for a certain number of hours per week, and you're not doing that.

I would keep my mouth shut and do my Christmas shopping. I have occasional
lulls and days where I’m bored. I thank my lucky stars that I’m paid well enough and I’m no longer keeling over from stress (was in my last job).

No, a lot of people are paid for the job they do, not for the hours they work. Employers have an idea of how long the job takes, so they allocate work accordingly.

If OP works twice as fast as the average employee, half her working week will be free time. She can ask for other work, as she says she has done, and she's completed that as well.

If employers paid by the hour rather than the job, there'd be no incentive to work efficiently, would there? Everyone would take as long as possible!

@Garlicpest, I know some jobs used to be like that, but OP's job clearly isn't from what she's said, and if she can't just go home if there isn't any more work to do.

@Garlicpest, most people are paid by the hour, and they manage to not work as slowly as possible 😂.

But you still have so many hours free you don't know what to do with them.

I can't get my head round this at all. I've always had too much work to get through! Why don't you develop a side hustle/take a second job you can do on line so it looks like you're busy? I'm not sure what but I imagine you must have a creative streak and will think of something since you are so much more efficient than your colleagues.

Work at my desk, weed out my emails, researching better ways to do stuff, clean the desk, or the clinical areas if I'm on the shop floor.
Clean communal areas, tidy those annoying wires at the back of my desk.

Really glad you are on top of your work, think I'd be a bit bored.
My work only stops when something has gone wrong.

Um @DancingTurtle please tell me the line of work. I'm so overwhelmed and looking to change career currently.

I mean... Asking for a friend...

Sporical website. I can name all zone 1 underground tube stations in under 8 minutes and my colleague could list all countries in under 20. We called it brain training.

I think it is ideal you are working alone, at least you don't need to be seen to be working. I would go down the audio book route if I were you, sort out my personal calendar for next year, think about researching where to go on holiday, write shopping lists. I would rather have a decent chunk of work to do though. It is way more stressful to have too little work than too much. My manager can see what I am doing on my monitor from his seat. He is perfectly busy doing my administrative tasks (yes really), while I am desperately scratching around for work to do. Thank god I am part time.

Doing nothing at work is a completely alien concept to me but then I'm a primary school teacher with an exponentially growing to-do list.

I find this so bizarre.. I cannot imagine not having enough work to do. I'd straight away be asking boss for more work. Surely there is something that you can help your boss with. If you regularly do not have enough work, maybe discuss if you can job share and do something else 2 days a week for a busier part of the business (good to learn new skills etc).

How can this be fulfilling career like this??
I literally don't have a spare minute in my job. I love it. Time literally flies by.

The faster and harder I used to work for a Chartered Surveyor he always piled on more..there was always pressure “This needs to be done within the hour please/we must get that out today/this is urgent…etc”

I now have the opposite: lots of lulls which I love..I can take a walk into town if I’m in the office, do jobs around the home if I’m WFH. My Manager said I go over and above what is expected of me when there is work and I need to enjoy the quiet times.

You need a side hustle!

God no, I don’t want to work more!

No you're paid to do certain tasks over 40 hours. If you complete them in 30 hours, so what?

It’s 2025 and I’m soooo bored. Have nothing to do.

Can you go and read some long articles? Learn something new online? Talk to ChatGPT?

If I had the time it would be clean inbox, read a load of research and articles in my to do list, put together some slides that I missing.

But if I genuinely was so effective that didn't have anything remaining in my "never get time to..." list and still had loads of spare time, this is what I would do:

1. Clarify why you are so much more productive than your colleagues.
2. Use today to think up ways to bring them up to your standard. Maybe it's finessing your tech tools so they can be used by others. Maybe it's taking more of their work temporarily so they have time each week to be trained /developed /mentored, maybe by you.
3. Turn those ideas into a pitch to your team and manager.