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Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning,

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Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's

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Speaker 1: tip is to track your downtime at work. Some jobs

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Speaker 1: require you to be there for a certain number of

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Speaker 1: hours and deal with things as they come up. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: there might be downtime you can use for things that

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Speaker 1: feel meaningful for your employer or for yourself. But it

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Speaker 1: helps to know what kind of time you are working with.

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Speaker 1: So a lot of jobs involve accomplishing certain tasks, but

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Speaker 1: others are about being responsive to what is going on.

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Speaker 1: Maybe respond to tech needs as they come up, or

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Speaker 1: security calls, or you are greeting visitors at a front desk.

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Speaker 1: Someone needs to be there. A receptionist can't exactly say, hey,

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Speaker 1: I have greeted people so well for the first six

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Speaker 1: hours of my shift that I can leave early. The

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Speaker 1: job is to be there in case someone shows up.

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Speaker 1: If you have had a job like that, or you

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Speaker 1: are in one now, you know that some days can

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Speaker 1: be frenzied. The service calls are coming left and right.

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Speaker 1: Other days, however, might be a bit slow. When I

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Speaker 1: was in college, I sometimes worked overnight shifts at the

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Speaker 1: campus student center, if someone needed something or if there

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Speaker 1: was a security concern, I had to triage that, but

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Speaker 1: a lot of the time I was just hanging out

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Speaker 1: and occasionally making rounds. I am kind of embarrassed to

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Speaker 1: report how much of that time I spent surfing the

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Speaker 1: early version of the web. I remember reading a lot

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Speaker 1: of forum posts and refreshing to see if maybe someone

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Speaker 1: in some other time zone had posted anything new. It's

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Speaker 1: kind of sad, but it is understandable because the problem,

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Speaker 1: of course, is that this work downtime is really hard

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Speaker 1: to use well. On any given day, you might have

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Speaker 1: no time, or you might have a lot of time.

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Speaker 1: Downtime might come in two minute chunks, or you might

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Speaker 1: get an hour, so it is hard to plan what

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Speaker 1: to do, hence the scrolling. But it is not impossible

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Speaker 1: to use this time well, and a key part of

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Speaker 1: using this downtime effectively is knowing as much about its

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Speaker 1: contours as you can, so try tracking it. It might

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Speaker 1: help to use some sort of time tracking app because

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Speaker 1: we're going to get very granular here for a few days.

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Speaker 1: Whenever your downtime starts, you hit start, and then when

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Speaker 1: you get a request or need to deal with something,

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Speaker 1: you hit stop, you will see how much downtime you have.

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Speaker 1: For instance, it would be good to know that in

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Speaker 1: an eight hour shift, it is highly likely that you

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Speaker 1: will have two and a half to three hours that

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Speaker 1: aren't spoken for. Seeing that chunk of time might motivate

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Speaker 1: you to think about what might be possible, whether that's

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Speaker 1: working on new projects for your employer, or if it's

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Speaker 1: an option where you work doing something like reading. You'll

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Speaker 1: also get some sense of the rhythms. For instance, maybe

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Speaker 1: the first four hours of your shift tend to feature

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Speaker 1: a lot of things you need to deal with, but

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Speaker 1: then the second four hours tends to be a lot lighter.

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Speaker 1: Or maybe you'll see that most of your time confetti

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Speaker 1: comes in five to ten minutes spurts, so you can

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Speaker 1: start to think of what will fit in that time.

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Speaker 1: It is highly unlikely that you'll get an hour, at

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Speaker 1: least not in this job, so you don't need to

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Speaker 1: worry yourself about that. Instead, you can make a list

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Speaker 1: of five to ten minute things that you could do.

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Speaker 1: In any case, people tend to feel more satisfied when

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Speaker 1: they are not spending a ton of time scrolling around online. Yes,

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Speaker 1: you may be getting paid for this time, so there's that,

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Speaker 1: but that doesn't mean you want to waste it. As

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Speaker 1: long as you respond quickly to requests, there's nothing better

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Speaker 1: about scrolling than say, reading a book and working on

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Speaker 1: a certification for a future job might be even better.

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Speaker 1: Knowing how much time you have to work with can

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Speaker 1: help you see if the latter might be possible. In

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Speaker 1: the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and here's

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Speaker 1: to making the most of our time. Thanks for listening

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Speaker 1: to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas, is or feedback,

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Speaker 1: you can reach me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.

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Speaker 1: Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts

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Speaker 1: from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or

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Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.