Any suggestions?<\/p>","upvoteCount":13,"answerCount":14,"datePublished":"2015-06-09T14:50:47.000Z","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"chrislove3","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/u/chrislove3"},"acceptedAnswer":{"@type":"Answer","text":"
Take the time to learn. Research/practice stuff. Idle time can be a great time to improve your abilities and it is a good legitimate “down time” activity. Study for certs or spend time on Spiceworks, reading post and answering questions. There are a lot of people here with a lot of wisdom to share.<\/p>\n
Maybe you could set up a virtual server to “play” with so you have something you can test/break/fix without repercussions.<\/p>","upvoteCount":4,"datePublished":"2015-06-09T15:02:20.000Z","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/t/free-time-at-work/410384/6","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"robertleonard","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/u/robertleonard"}},"suggestedAnswer":[{"@type":"Answer","text":"
What do you all do to keep your “free time” to a minimum? This is my first official IT job, and some days I feel I get payed for sitting in this chair. No tickets come in, no users at my desk asking questions, everything seems<\/em> fine. Is it normal to be in a “hurry up and wait” state in IT? Luckily there’s only 5 of us IT guys for all of our locations in the US, so when our Systems Admin needs help with something above my knowledge I get to tag along and learn. When tickets do come in they either get taken care of almost instantly, or we reply to them and never hear anything back from the creator.<\/p>\n Any suggestions?<\/p>","upvoteCount":13,"datePublished":"2015-06-09T14:50:47.000Z","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/t/free-time-at-work/410384/1","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"chrislove3","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/u/chrislove3"}},{"@type":"Answer","text":" Browse Spiceworks and try to answer questions, you’ll learn a lot doing that. I also listen to a lot of podcasts and read tech news articles to stay up-to-date.<\/p>","upvoteCount":8,"datePublished":"2015-06-09T14:52:05.000Z","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/t/free-time-at-work/410384/2","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"jimmy-t","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/u/jimmy-t"}},{"@type":"Answer","text":" McDonalds has a saying: if you have time to lean, you have time to clean.<\/p>\n SO if there is nothing to do - take a look at your servers and delete old temp files. Tidy up your workstation and desktop area, write some powershell scripts to automate more stuff.<\/p>\n And when all this is done - logon to Microsoft’s Virtual Academy and learn more. There are some great PowerSHell sessions for example.<\/p>\n i never have ‘free’ time - way too much to achieve!<\/p>","upvoteCount":6,"datePublished":"2015-06-09T14:54:26.000Z","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/t/free-time-at-work/410384/3","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"DoctorDNS","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/u/DoctorDNS"}},{"@type":"Answer","text":" I always have projects that I can be working on (testing Windows 10 compatibility with our environment for example), or training and learning, professional development. Or I could be browsing the Spiceworks Community!<\/p>","upvoteCount":2,"datePublished":"2015-06-09T14:55:57.000Z","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/t/free-time-at-work/410384/4","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"bnoga","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/u/bnoga"}},{"@type":"Answer","text":" I check around Spiceworks for posts like this. I read up on things I want to get more familiar with. I have a little downtime today as I am running backups that failed the last few days due to a storage device problem. My other big project today doesn’t start till about 4.<\/p>","upvoteCount":3,"datePublished":"2015-06-09T14:59:34.000Z","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/t/free-time-at-work/410384/5","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"jbroseberry","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/u/jbroseberry"}},{"@type":"Answer","text":" You can try and learn more about the processes and systems in place in your organization. Try and learn why things are set up a certain way or even see why some things may be set up wrong.<\/p>\n Browse SW and read through topics even if you do not answer them. I do this to at least brush up on enough knowledge to know certain technology by name and know basic info about it. Eventually you can learn enough to start helping out more.<\/p>\n Also if you do feel bored at work, bring it up with your supervisor and see if you can get a bit more responsibility.<\/p>","upvoteCount":1,"datePublished":"2015-06-09T15:13:15.000Z","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/t/free-time-at-work/410384/7","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"evanalmightyyy","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/u/evanalmightyyy"}},{"@type":"Answer","text":" I like to push documentation and make sure everything is current. Then Like to organize and inventory all the random equipment laying around. after that i go talk to users because alot of times there is something to fix that i just don’t know about because no one has spoken up. Then i like to look at software solutions for some of the small needs around the office and to just see if there is a way to streamline some processes.<\/p>","upvoteCount":2,"datePublished":"2015-06-09T15:51:03.000Z","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/t/free-time-at-work/410384/8","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"mattcabanas","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/u/mattcabanas"}},{"@type":"Answer","text":" Also see Free Time at Work<\/a> , Downtime - What do you do?<\/a> , What do you do when you have no tickets?<\/a> , and What do you do on a slow day at work?<\/a> .<\/p>","upvoteCount":3,"datePublished":"2015-06-09T19:04:31.000Z","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/t/free-time-at-work/410384/9","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"lee-s-spiceworks","url":"https://community.spiceworks.com/u/lee-s-spiceworks"}},{"@type":"Answer","text":"