I’ve talked briefly before about how structure can help your mood or at least limit your choices to stay away from Dark Side episodes.

 Work provides us structure naturally.  Less so in the new hybrid work world but for me it defines a good structure to my day to keep me out of my own head.

Get up, surf the internet, have breakfast, drive to work, get a coffee, and sit down at the desk.  Plenty of choices made for me. All autopilot.  All good for someone who is not great at being self driven

Structure is one good side of work.  There is another even better benefit at work if you choose to use it wisely. 

We all work in a different way.  Some methodically plod through, some put off any work to the last second, many have jobs that are reactive that need an input. If work is smooth (or slow) there is not much to do.  Each person has their own style of how they get through their work on a day to day basis.

For me I get paid to lead a small team, or more importantly, get paid to make decisions.  Most people avoid making a decision in case they get it wrong.   Me – no issue.  I have advanced in my career because I will take in the big picture, take in the politics, and make the decision.  The ball of getting work stuff done moves forward a little bit each day in the empire.

The faster I find the root cause of any issue, fix the problem,  the faster the work gets better and the day to day gets smoother.   The smoother it goes, the less stuff comes to me for decisions.  The smoother it goes the more boring it becomes for me. 

I am one of those who likes the crap to be hitting the fan so I can be busy. The more fires at work the more useful I am.   As I have gotten older, more experienced,  work problems end up repeating a pattern that I have dealt with before.   It makes them fast to solve. This makes the fires less frequent and smaller.  So I get bored

But Vader, boredom is not good.  True. But…

I am starting to choose how I use my downtime better during the day.  For retirement.  Think of these slow periods as retirement practice.

I am using that time right now.  To explore a hobby I hope to keep in retirement. To write this blog.  And in a way work is paying me to do it.  

At previous jobs I would have used this down time to surf the web, make small talk , and generally just wasting time.  This time I am using it to scratch an itch. To explore my creativity and to write.  To explore this world.

If I was retired I don’t know how much time I would put into it.  I wouldn’t have that forced structure of work.

So I am trying to build a writing habit.  Most days at work I start with blogging in the first hour. And you know what – it starts my day off the right way.  I am enjoying it.  All smiles.

If it mattered I am making more blogging at work than I ever will in retirement.  $100s of dollars per blog post baby to try my new hobby. I am not fast at it so maybe it will be thousands per blog post.   I don’t think Padme would pay me the same to do this if I was off. 

One benefit of this hobby is it helps my work.  It energizes me in a way as I get to use my creative side. It gets me out of my head and out of the political work cycle. It forces me to have a true mental break. 

In my past jobs there typically were plenty of fires when I joined company in my department. Over time I beat them out and then work starts to get boring. Most places I didn’t use this spare time for me.  I don’t want to think about the time I wasted when I could have been doing stuff for me.  

Maybe this is part of the reason people have fought so hard to work from home post covid. They get back lost time commuting. They don’t have to look busy when they have idle time. There is no pressure for face time.   They utilize this boring or down time for them.  When you are out of sight it is easier.   

It is my choice where I work but I admit I struggle to work from home.  It is rooted in my need for that structure. For the people that do work at home I can see where it makes life better.  To be more productive in this down time

Once  in my career I did use downtime well.  I was at a relatively large tech company that was on a  downward slope as business was shrinking. The company had missed their main product window, sales were collapsing, and it was obvious what was next.  Mass layoffs were coming and regardless of how hard you worked it didn’t matter.  But large companies move slowly so everyone had a heads up to get ready

During this stressful, but boring time, I chose to use my time wisely.   I learned how to run, while getting paid, in the last year I worked there.  I went from couch to half marathon in 5 months.    In a typical work week, I put in 20 to 30K of jogging during “lunch”.   It was me time and helped mentally prepare for the pending doom that was coming. I kept up the running until the end.

This time I am choosing writing. It is a hobby I hope to continue in retirement. Here is to making $1000s doing this blog until I retire.  

Then it will be just for fun