We\u2019ve all been there. There have been deadlines. Important deadlines. You\u2019ve had to work late, maybe miss a drink or two with friends. Burning the midnight oil is no longer a turn of phrase but a literal problem; working at home, you left the oven on, too busy with budgets or copywriting to notice that your meal has burnt to a crisp in the kitchen. The work kept piling up and it seemed like it would never end.<\/p>\n
Until it did.<\/p>\n
And breathe<\/em>. The event is over, the work has been signed off, the client is happy and you are done for the time being. You sit at your desk, fresh with a good night\u2019s sleep, open your laptop and\u2026 Nothing. There is nothing<\/em> to do.<\/p>\n It happens! Everyone has a quiet period, in every workplace in every industry. It\u2019s boring. You\u2019re struggling. You can\u2019t look at a blank screen for eight hours a day, hoping that something comes through. Be positive \u2013 now it\u2019s time for a breather, to get your life in check. Here\u2019s what to do when you have absolutely nothing <\/em>to do; of course, after you\u2019ve checked with your line managers\/bosses\/colleagues that there really is<\/em> nothing <\/em>to do.<\/p>\n Set Goals<\/strong><\/p>\n The first thing I would suggest would be setting some goals. Not only a productive way to fill time, this definitely helps straighten out my head and gives me a clear direction. Set goals for the week, for the end of the year, for the next five years, for the next ten. Take some time to really think about where you would like to be and map out the paths you need to walk to get there. You want that big house with the three German Shepherds and a team of employees beneath you. How are you going to get there? Write it down for later reference.<\/p>\n Reflect<\/strong><\/p>\n When thinking back to all the hard work you\u2019ve just put in, you\u2019re reminded of an opportunity for promotion at the end of the year. Why do you deserve it? Write a list of all the things you\u2019ve achieved this annum, however small. Any little jobs you\u2019ve taken on as extra, the late nights you\u2019ve put in without even a murmur of complaint. Write it down. Collate feedback; scroll through your emails and keep a copy of everything nice someone has said about you and your work so that you can pull them up in your review. Even if you\u2019re not due a promotion it\u2019s good to have these lists and add to them whenever you\u2019re quiet so that you can use them when needed. (Plus, who doesn\u2019t love reading nice things about themselves? Everyone needs an ego boost sometimes.)<\/p>\n Organise your desk<\/strong><\/p>\n Isn\u2019t it really time you went through your overflowing drawers and relieved them of paperwork? Do you really need the brainstorming sheet you created for that event in 2012? You\u2019ve had that banana in your top drawer for a year now. Learn to let go<\/em>. Take some time to rifle through all your belongings, then head to the shredder and feel the weight of past work lift from your shoulders. A tidy space is a tidy mind. Spring clean. Heck, buy some flowers and pop them on your completely empty desk for a little bit of joy. Fake ones, though, so you never have to throw them out. Genius.<\/p>\n Organise your computer<\/strong><\/p>\n Okay, so you\u2019re the kind of person that doesn\u2019t keep old food or work in their drawers (no, that doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re better than the rest of us). Perhaps you and your organisation have gone paperless \u2013 and kudos to you for helping to save the planet if you have! \u00a0(Yes, in that case, it does<\/em> mean you\u2019re better than the rest of us.) But there\u2019s always a place where someone is untidy, where they can bung things and not have to look at them for a while. For me \u2013 it\u2019s my computer. My Documents are rife with loose bits of work, fonts, illustrations and ideas just floating with no purpose. My Downloads folder? Let\u2019s not even go there.<\/p>\n Go through and do a bit of tidying up so that you keep what you need to keep and free up some storage deleting bits you don\u2019t. Documents and images that should be in project folders\u2026 Well, they should be in project folders. Put them there. Even if the project finished three years ago, you or someone else may<\/em> need to go back and find something from it. Make it easier for Future You. Whilst you\u2019re at it, delete the random downloads you did nothing with. Clear your desktop. Change your wallpaper. Make your computer something fresh to sit down to each day.<\/p>\n Develop\u2026 Professionally<\/strong><\/p>\n Focus on bettering yourself professionally in some way. If you have a short amount of time to kill \u2013 like an hour \u2013 read some articles that are relevant to your field. Search the web for blogs and websites of organisations in your industry and find out what they\u2019re doing, thinking and talking about. Write a thinkpiece for your company\u2019s blog.<\/p>\n If you have a lengthy amount of time to kill, why not try and learn a new skill? It may not even be immediately relevant to or necessary for your role \u2013 for example a designer learning to code when they have a whole host<\/em> of developers at arm\u2019s length \u2013 but it could certainly help in the future if an unexpected project pops up with nobody to handle it (\u201cno, we don\u2019t want to lose that fantastic Japanese client due to communication difficulties \u2013 I\u2019ve just taught myself Japanese, so I can save the day!\u201d Okay, so maybe it wouldn\u2019t go quite like this, but can you imagine?!) or if, for example, in the above case of coding, some of the developers are out sick on a super important project right before a deadline\u2026 An extra pair of hands will do wonders.<\/p>\n Want to have lots of things to do in a relaxing, countryside-surrounded office with the loveliest people in the world? We\u2019re always looking for passionate people to join our team. See if you have what it takes to be an Ignitionite (permanent employee nickname pending\u2026 any suggestions are welcome) \u2013 send us your CV! (And if you haven\u2019t updated your CV in a while, that\u2019s another thing you could do when you\u2019ve got nothing to do. You\u2019re welcome for the bonus tip.)<\/p>\n Ignition is an award-winning independent, full service provider of blended learning, training and marketing. We work in partnership with many of the world\u2019s biggest brands, actively helping to improve knowledge, behaviours and performance. For further information about Ignition\u2019s work please email\u00a0info@ignitiononline.com<\/a>\u00a0or call +44 (0) 1279 201100.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" We\u2019ve all been there. There have been deadlines. Important deadlines. You\u2019ve had to work late, maybe miss a drink or two with friends. Burning the midnight oil is no longer a turn of phrase but a literal problem; working at home, you left the oven on, too busy with budgets or copywriting to notice that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4412,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_sitemap_exclude":false,"_sitemap_priority":"","_sitemap_frequency":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[193,5,1],"tags":[363,191,364,362,361,289,365,366],"class_list":["post-4009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-general","category-uncategorized","tag-boredom","tag-development","tag-organisation","tag-personal-development","tag-productivity","tag-skills","tag-tips","tag-tips-and-tricks"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ignitiononline.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ignitiononline.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ignitiononline.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ignitiononline.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ignitiononline.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4009"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/ignitiononline.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5497,"href":"https:\/\/ignitiononline.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4009\/revisions\/5497"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ignitiononline.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ignitiononline.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ignitiononline.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ignitiononline.com\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}