8 Things To Do When You Have Nothing To Do

Herbert Marcusse once speculated that the great problem of the late twentieth century would be the amount of free time everyone would have on our hands once capitalism had solved the problem of scarcity. I couldn't help think of this while reading your post.

Most of your suggestings are pretty straightforward but in one form or fashion these ideas are about connecting with others. But I guess I am left asking the question, connecting toward what end? Making money is clearly there, still a necessary practice despite Marcusse's notion that the pursuit of material needs had been resolved, but what I am looking for is the political not just the social dimension of connectivity. One doesn't have to travel too far beyond our front doors to find needs that require collective action.

Connectivity will only be meaningful when it is put in service of something larger than our own egos. That's the best cure for boredom in my opinion.

Russ,

Interesting take on this post. It was supposed to be a fun post that shows some interesting websites for people to check out that were somewhat productive. But now you've got me thinking. I guess they all do relate to connectivity in one way or another. How would you suggest we put this connectivity that comes so natural to people my age to use in service of something larger than our own egos?

Also, couldn't you say that creating this blog and allowing millennials to have a seat at the table in this discussion about us entering the workplace is a service that feeds more than just our own egos? If people leave a post and provide their input, maybe corporations will listen and the workplace will begin to evolve, helping everyone. Moreover, the creators of 43things.com provide a service that allows people to help other people accomplish all kinds of goals. This seems like more than an ego boosting social networking tool to me.

Hi Ryan,

I found your blog via Brazen Careerist – nice work getting a gig there. I can't say that I agree whole-heartedly with your blended life approach, but that's for another time.

Was only going to suggest that you don't upload your resume whilst in your cubicle – or at least, don't if you are working for a big corporation that most likely tracks your internet usage. Unfortunately it can lead to some rather awkward conversations…

Hey Ryan

Thanks for the Advisor Garage.com shout out! Really appreciate it! Go ahead folks…start a company and make your mark…

Will add this blog to my blogroll…good stuff!

Andrew

hi
I understand completely how it feels when you have joined a new company and people act as if you dont exist. On top of this one full week I have been sitting idle with no work allocated, nothing to do. I can't even feel free to just walk out or have a nap as it is a new company. In fact Iam in this company for a summer project. But till now I have'nt started it. I have spoken to the HR here. He said dont panic, it wont take much time to complete the project. I can't even check mail or chat as it is blocked by the company server. Making you sit idle with no work at all is a kind of psychological torture. It is like cornering you.
I am fed up. Should never have come to this company. I hate it. They have no concern for people. The HR here is made of morons and not people.

Rashmi,

Don't worry you aren't alone. A large number of my friends and others I have spoken with feel the same way. It never really made sense to me why companies don't give young people alot of work, but overload the older managers who already have a family and kids to deal with.

I think you are one step ahead by talking to HR and at least making them aware. My advice is to get a hobby that you can work on when bored at work. Maybe you could start blogging and posting after work, just a thought.

How about instead of spending time to fill time, how about spending some throughtful self-investigative (or using a mentor's help) process to really find out what you want to with the rest of the time you have in this world?

it is through true understanding of one's life purpose that one gets to the actual meaningful use of time, then you don't have to search for what to do in our spare time, the time fills itself with creative ideas and activities..

Think about it

Audible.com saved my life at work. I begged (and begged) my manager for more work and something that might make better use of my brain and dual-major degree than copy-paste-click-rightclick-copy-paste-typetwowords-cut-paste…you get the idea, to no avail. Eventually I gave up. Now I keep my brain from rotting by listening to novels for several hours a day and brushing up on my French with the free program on the Foreign Service Institute website: http://fsi-language-courses.com/default.aspx

Good suggestions and glad to know I'm not alone!

Hello Ryan, no prize for guessing how I ended up at your blog during work hours. Yes, I'm bored stiff with nothing to do. Therefore, I googled and found this wonderful post of yours. I've done most of the things suggested here and now yearning for more. Kate, I was a former audible.com subscriber too but stopped a while ago. Now I blog, mostly. Maybe I should re-subscribe again… Cheers!

I'm co-oping at large financial services company. I've finally figured out how to keep myself busy — procrastinate! I continue to ask for more things to do and then hold on to jobs until about a day or two before I have to turn them over for review. (I'm a writer, so as long as I hit the first draft deadline on the schedule, no one worries.) In my spare time I have also completely reorgazined the "creative resources library" here and volunteered for multiple "research" jobs (ie, finding materials on the server my boss is too whatever to get himself).

Luckily for me, part of my job is to read the news (which is how I find your site — WSJ article). So as long as there's a lot of text on the screen and my fingers keep hitting the keys, everyone thinks I'm working hard. In fact, someone probably thinks I'm working right now!

Anyways, thanks for the awesome blog — I've spread it around to my friends and my supervisors (who had me do some "research" on millenials for their corporate recruiting materials). And thanks for keeping me entertained. Maybe I will start that company now…

If you're feeling guilty about doing nothing for the company, there's lots of things you might be able to volunteer for.

I periodically organize and present brown bag lunches, where everyone brings lunch and someone presents on a industry-related topic.

You can read everything related to your job – no matter what industry, i'm sure there's a website for it. Training is expensive, and you need all the knowledge you can get.

If you want to be a hero, think up new ways to increase sales. If you can come up with just one client, product, or improvement – you'll always be recognized as the "XYZ" guy.

If none of those are an option, write. Write a blog. Write a book. Write essays. It always looks productive, it's great for self expression, and you never know what it'll lead to. I didn't go the blog route. Instead, I just signed a contract with O'Reilly.

I am soo happy to hear that I am not the only one who is completely bored with their job. I actually took my going nowhere admin job because I was in a bad finanical situation and need a job ASAP. During my interview they said that I could learn alot and that they promote within all the time, but thats a bunch of garbage. The last few people who were promoted had been at their position for 4 to 5 years doing admin work before being promoted. I can't wait that long, I'll go completely crazy! But now I am ready to put my dual majors to work and hope that I can find something that will make me happy and productive.

Nerdy as it may sound, I like to budget when I am bored.

I work out my daily spending limits, enter all my expenses, record my daily surplus (or all to often my daily deficit) and work out how much I am saving, or could be saving if I didnt buy that new pair of citizens. I find that seeing all my expenses added up on the screen really motivates me to save. (wow… this really does sound nerdy)

There are two added bonuses to this time-killing strategy – one, because you need to use excel to track your expenses it really looks like actually doing work. Second, after you work out how much you could hypothetically save, you can start planning your next vacation that you can hypothetically afford. And if anyone knows a more fun and soul-satisfying way to pass an hour than planning a backpacking trip through Central America I'd love to hear it.

It's not that there's nothing to do at my job. It's that there's no money to do it. The real estate market took a dive, and now everyone's scrambling just to make it with constant cost-cutting. This company is lost in the stone-age and if I had the financial resources, I could update this place into technological reality. Until the market picks up, I'm forced to write proposals that will most likely be outdated by the time they could be realized financially. Is it worth it to "weather the storm" to maintain loyalty? Or should I just can it?

Hi,

I read all of your comments and I found some very interesting ways to stay busy during my boring days at work. I just want to share a story…my supervisor gave me a task that she figured would take at least half of the day. Well, it took about 40 minutes to complete and then I was thinking, "Now what?!" I'm a Gen Y'er and I think a lot of people think we are lazy. Well, I'm here to say that's not true. Maybe people think we're lazy because they don't see how fast we complete a project that would've taken them a whole day to complete. GIVE ME MORE WORK!!!

Ryan,

I saw your presentation on 60 Minutes and I finally came upon the website. I have to comment that while I agree with your philosophy on work, I strongly disagree with your approach.

Then I read this article with suggestions of how to spend your time at work when you have nothing to do. I do agree that it is silly for managers to give employees no work to do while expecting their full attention and presence for 9 hours a day. It is not productive for the company, and it is not productive for the employee. It also continues the propagation of the model of inefficiency the American workplace seems to have developed over the 21st century. It also discourages the use of delegation of roles/responsibilities, and then you have a situation of 10% of the staff doing 90% of the work.

Today's generation of workers are much more efficient than yesterday's. I don't care what anyone says, give a young kid either an internet related task or a word processing task, they will get it done faster than their boomer colleagues in most cases. So if they can get their work done in 6 hours versus 9, browsing the internet from time to time, blogging, learning a new language (which can only benefit the company), is ok from my point of view.

But today's generation of workers often run out of tasks early, and then fail to ask for more work to do or help other people in other departments out. I find that if you ask around enough, someone will give you something they have long put off to do. I often find myself completing all things that my manager specified for me to do, and often with more time on my hands as a result. People advance in their careers by coming up with their own work to do that will improve the company, not by waiting for their manager to dole out assignments. It's called taking the initiative!

Things like looking at blogs, news, weather, etc. are probably ok from time to time. What I strongly disagree with are things like uploading resumes, looking for new jobs at other companies, and downloading music on the company's time. While you're downloading music files, what if someone needs to upload a 40K document that is work-related and you are taking up their bandwidth? That is unfair to people who do have work to do and need to utilize those resources that you are abusing. Uploading resumes can have disasterous consequences as well. Company's have gotten a lot more savvy at catching employees doing this, especially with email. If you do get caught, expect to be fired. The way the company sees it, looking for other jobs shows you don't like or want your current job enough. And if nobody is giving you any work to do as it is, then you no have value to the company, which gives them more leverage to fire you.

Like it or not if you guys if you get caught doing these things, your manager may not see running out of work to do as a license for you to goof off and (ab)use the company's internet privileges. Even if you are getting all the work done that your manager gives you, their perception of your work ethic is your reality rather than your output of productive work assignments. This is sad, I realize, but the way to counter this is to talk to your managers. Let them know that you don't have enough work to do, and that you are getting bored. It sounds risky to do that, but it is a lot better than being caught abusing the company's internet privileges.

Regardless of how efficient and multi-tasking you are at getting things done, this type of behavior is still frowned upon, for good reason. Good employees get all the work that their managers assign done. Great employees go above and beyond their managers work assignments and take initiative to do even more.

Thank You

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hi,

I have moved from India. My husband goes for work. I am free nothing to do..aslo looking for job but i guess there is no way out. I don't know what to do..
Its pretty much boring to do nothing.