Who hasn’t been bored at work? Feeling those eyelids creeping down while you’re still at your desk happens to the best of us. Sometimes the best way to top up your energy levels and motivation is to take a little time out for yourself and indulge in a bit of harmless time-wasting. (It’s workplace self-care, really…)
If you’ve already run through your regular time-wasting activities and you can’t bear the sight of one more Youtube video, try one of these excellent activities to keep your eyes open until you perk up.
Pick Up a New Skill
The definition of wasting time at your desk is that you’re doing something that isn’t productive in a work-related way. The definition says nothing to suggest that your activity should be unproductive, full stop. If you have a few minutes to kill every afternoon, now could be an ideal time to learn a new skill.
There’s an added bonus here if your work is genuinely boring, and you think you’d like to move on: what better way to prepare yourself for the job market than to learn a new resume-friendly skill? Perhaps you’ve always wanted to learn how to code, or dazzle your future employer with your video-editing skills. Check out the amazing range of courses you can do online, many of them for free!
Get An Online Hobby
As well as providing plenty of opportunities to learn new things, the Internet is a hub for hobbyists. To pick a good online hobby, think about what you love to do in the real world. Chess players will have no trouble wasting time with online chess matches. If you’re a bookworm, consider diving into the world of ebooks. Unless your colleague peers over your shoulder or into your cubicle, your computer screen will probably seem quite studious, crammed with dense pages of tiny text. If you’re a fan of real-world gambling, online betting opportunities abound. Try the Satta Matka game, or go old school and try your hand at online blackjack.
Get Into Gaming
While your boss might frown on you for playing a first-person shooter on your work PC, you needn’t rule out gaming completely when it comes to wasting time at your desk. All you need to do is find a web-based game that could plausibly—at a stretch—be work-related. For example, what self-respecting employee doesn’t use Wikipedia now and again to check up on some facts? Try the Wiki Game. It’s basically Wikipedia, but gamified. You’ll explore the site by clicking from one article to the next via internal links, aiming to use as few clicks as you can. GeoGuessr is another good time-waster that looks (sort of) like work. Exploring the globe via street view, you will work out unknown locations by checking out your strange surroundings. Drop a pin on a world map once you think you’ve nailed it.
Being bored at your desk is one of the most demotivating states ever. Better to pep yourself up with a little time-wasting, and then get back to work refreshed. These ideas will help you out when you’re so bored you can’t even think of how to waste a little time.