Things To Do When Bored At Work: 22 Productive and Genuine Ways to Use Slow Time

Most people experience boredom at work regularly. A 2021 Gallup survey found that only 36% of US employees report feeling engaged at work on any given day. The other 64% spend significant portions of their working week in a low-engagement state that feels like boredom but is more precisely described as under-stimulation. The things to do when bored at work matter because how you use that time determines whether slow periods become wasted hours or genuinely useful ones.

This guide covers 45 specific, practical activities grouped by type, time available, and work context. Some are productive in an obvious career-forward way. Others are restorative in ways that make the rest of your working week better. None of them involve mindlessly scrolling your phone for 40 minutes and feeling worse afterward.

Must Read: Creative Things To Do When You Feel Uninspired

The best things to do when bored at work include tackling deferred admin tasks, learning a new skill relevant to your role, organising your digital files, reading industry articles, planning your week, doing a brief walk, reaching out to a colleague you have not spoken to recently, or starting a side project you have been putting off.

Why Work Boredom Is Worth Taking Seriously

Boredom at work is not a character flaw. Research published in the Academy of Management Discoveries in 2019 found that chronic work boredom is associated with lower job performance, higher turnover intention, and reduced mental health over time.

The same research found that employees who used slow periods for deliberate self-development activities reported significantly higher job satisfaction than those who did not.

The things to do when bored at work that produce the best outcomes are the ones that connect to something you genuinely want to develop, accomplish, or improve rather than the ones that simply fill time until the next meeting.

Things To Do When Bored At Work

Category	Example Activity	Time Required	Career Benefit
Learning	Online course, skill practice	15-60 min	High
Organisation	File systems, inbox zero	20-45 min	Medium
Career development	CV update, LinkedIn, networking	20-60 min	High
Creative	Writing, planning, brainstorming	15-45 min	Medium to high
Wellness	Walking, stretching, breathing	5-20 min	High for focus
Admin catch-up	Expenses, scheduling, reporting	20-60 min	Medium
Relationship building	Reaching out to colleagues	10-30 min	High
Reading	Industry news, books, research	15-45 min	Medium to high

Things To Do When Bored At Work: Learning and Skill Development

1. Take a Free Online Course in Your Field

Free learning platforms make professional development accessible during any quiet period at work. A 15-20 minute module on a topic relevant to your role counts as genuine work time spent well.

Best free platforms for workplace learning:

1. Coursera (audit mode) – Access university-level courses from Yale, Google, and IBM for free without certification. Topics cover data analysis, project management, UX design, and hundreds of other professional skills.
2. LinkedIn Learning – If your employer provides LinkedIn Premium, the learning library includes over 20,000 courses in business, technology, and creative skills. Access through your LinkedIn account.
3. Google Digital Garage – Free courses in digital marketing, data analytics, and career development with Google-issued certificates.
4. HubSpot Academy – Free courses and certifications in marketing, sales, content strategy, and CRM. Certifications are recognised by employers.
5. MIT OpenCourseWare – Free access to actual MIT course materials across engineering, computer science, economics, and management.
6. Khan Academy – Free maths, statistics, economics, and computer science instruction. Particularly useful for people moving into data-adjacent roles.

Pick one course topic and work through it in 15-20 minute sessions during slow periods rather than dipping between multiple topics. Sustained single-topic learning produces measurable skill improvement; topic-hopping does not.

2. Practice a Technical Skill Relevant to Your Role

Technical skills deteriorate without practice and improve with consistent use. Slow periods at work are the ideal time to work on skills you use occasionally rather than daily.

Practice activities by role type:

Role Type	Skill to Practice	Free Resource
Marketing	Google Analytics 4 navigation	Google’s Skillshop (free)
Finance	Excel financial modelling	Chandoo.org (free tutorials)
Design	Figma component building	Figma’s own free tutorials
Writing	AP style practice	AP Stylebook online
Data	SQL query writing	SQLZoo.net (free, browser-based)
Management	Structured meeting facilitation	MindTools.com
Sales	CRM data hygiene	Your CRM’s own training modules

15-20 minutes of deliberate technical practice three times per week produces measurable improvement within a month across most professional skills.

3. Read Industry Publications and Research

Reading within your professional field during quiet work periods is one of the most straightforwardly useful things to do when bored at work. It keeps your knowledge current, surfaces ideas relevant to your role, and produces the kind of ambient professional awareness that eventually shows up in better conversations, proposals, and decisions.

Building a reading list that actually gets used:

• Save articles to Pocket or Instapaper rather than leaving browser tabs open. Read from your saved list rather than searching fresh each time.
• Subscribe to two or three email newsletters in your field rather than browsing broadly. Good options vary by industry: Morning Brew for business, The Hustle for startups, TLDR for technology.
• Set a 20-minute reading window rather than leaving reading open-ended. Defined time works better than indefinite browsing.
• Write two or three sentences in a notes app summarising what you read and why it matters. This simple step doubles retention compared to passive reading.

4. Learn a New Software Tool Your Company Uses

Most organisations use software tools that employees know only partially. A slow period is an opportunity to learn the portions of a tool you currently avoid or skip.

Common tools with significant untapped capability:

1. Microsoft Excel or Google Sheets – Most users know 20% of available functions. VLOOKUP, XLOOKUP, pivot tables, and conditional formatting are used by fewer than half of regular spreadsheet users.
2. Slack or Microsoft Teams – Workflow automation, channel organisation, and app integrations are used by a minority of daily users.
3. Canva – Most users work with pre-made templates without exploring the design tool capabilities.
4. Notion or Confluence – Database and template functions are underused by most knowledge workers who use these platforms.
5. PowerPoint or Google Slides – Animation, master slides, and presenter tools are skipped by most regular presenters.

Search YouTube for “[tool name] tips for [your role]” and work through five to ten practical techniques in a single session.

5. Study for a Professional Qualification or Certification

If you have a qualification in progress or have been planning to start one, use slow periods for structured study rather than waiting for dedicated weekend time that rarely materialises.

Professional certifications worth pursuing during work downtime by field:

Field	Certification	Provider	Study Time
Project management	CAPM or PMP	PMI	23-60 hours
Marketing	Google Ads	Google Skillshop	5-10 hours
Data analysis	Google Data Analytics Certificate	Coursera	6 months part-time
HR	SHRM-CP	SHRM	60-90 hours
Finance	CFA Level 1	CFA Institute	300+ hours
Tech	CompTIA A+	CompTIA	50-80 hours

Break study into 20-30 minute units. Consistent short sessions during slow work periods can complete the study requirement for several certifications within a quarter.

Things To Do When Bored At Work: Organisation and Admin

6. Reach Inbox Zero

A cluttered email inbox is one of the most persistent low-level stressors in professional life. Slow work periods are the ideal time to clear it systematically rather than in five-minute bursts.

A practical inbox zero method:

1. Create four folders: Action Required, Waiting For, Reference, and Archive
2. Work through emails oldest-first rather than newest-first
3. Any email taking less than two minutes to respond to: respond immediately and archive
4. Any email requiring more than two minutes: move to Action Required
5. Any email where you are waiting for someone else’s response: move to Waiting For
6. Unsubscribe from any newsletter or mailing list you do not read using Unroll.me or manual unsubscribing

This process takes 45-90 minutes for a typical inbox. Maintaining it takes 10 minutes per day afterward.

7. Organise Your Digital Files

Most knowledge workers have digital file systems that have grown organically for years and make finding anything older than a month genuinely difficult. One productive session reorganising your file structure saves meaningful cumulative time over the following year.

A functional file structure for most roles:

• Year-Month-ProjectName naming convention for all active project files
• One folder per active project, archived when complete
• A single Downloads folder that gets cleared weekly
• A separate Resources folder for reference materials used across multiple projects
• Cloud backup confirmed and running for all critical folders

Spending 45-60 minutes reorganising your file system once produces returns that compound over months. This is among the highest-return things to do when bored at work in terms of time value.

8. Update Your Task Management System

Most people’s task lists drift into an inaccurate state over weeks. Tasks that were completed are still listed. New tasks have not been added. Priorities are outdated. A slow period is the ideal time for a full task system review.

A task system reset in four steps:

1. List everything you need to do in the next two weeks, without filtering, in one place
2. Delete or archive any task that is no longer relevant
3. Assign a due date to every remaining task
4. Prioritise by impact rather than urgency

Free task management tools that work well for individuals: Todoist (free tier), Microsoft To Do (free), Notion (free tier), and Apple Reminders (free, integrates with calendar).

9. Complete Your Expense Claims and Timesheets

Expense claims and timesheets are universally deferred and universally stressful when they pile up. A slow period eliminates this specific low-level stressor permanently if you use it to clear the backlog and establish a filing habit going forward.

Expense claim catch-up process:

1. Open your bank statement and identify all work-related transactions from the past month
2. Photograph or download receipts from email (most email clients have a receipt filter)
3. File claims through your employer’s system in one batch rather than one at a time
4. Set a weekly 10-minute calendar block for ongoing expense maintenance

This is one of the things to do when bored at work that most people know they should do and consistently avoid. Doing it during a slow period removes an item that otherwise occupies background mental space for weeks.

Also Read: Things To Do As A Couple When Bored

10. Clean and Organise Your Physical Workspace

A cluttered physical workspace increases cognitive load and reduces focus capacity, according to research from Princeton University’s Neuroscience Institute published in 2011. The study found that physical clutter competing for visual attention reduced performance on sustained attention tasks and increased stress.

A 20-minute workspace reset:

1. Clear everything from your desk surface completely
2. Discard any paper or materials that are no longer needed
3. Return all items to their proper storage location
4. Wipe the desk surface
5. Return only the items you use daily to the desk

A clean desk at the start and end of each work session is consistently associated with higher productivity in multiple workplace studies.

Things To Do When Bored At Work: Career Development

11. Update Your CV and LinkedIn Profile

Your CV and LinkedIn profile are most accurately updated while you are currently in a role and your responsibilities and achievements are recent and clearly remembered. Updating them during a quiet period at work produces better content than attempting to reconstruct achievements after you have left a position.

CV update priorities:

1. Add any new responsibilities taken on in the last six months
2. Add quantified achievements from recent projects (percentage improvements, revenue figures, time savings)
3. Remove anything older than 10 years unless it is directly relevant to your current direction
4. Update your skills section to reflect tools and technologies you currently use
5. Refresh your personal statement or summary to reflect your current positioning

LinkedIn additions that produce practical results: a recent photograph, updated job title and description, three to five specific skills endorsed by current colleagues, and at least one recommendation from a manager or senior colleague.

12. Research Where You Want to Be in Two Years

Career development without a direction is aimless. A quiet work period is useful for deliberate thinking about professional trajectory.

Research activities with practical career value:

• Look at job postings for the role you want in two years and identify the skill gaps between that specification and your current profile
• Research the typical career path from your current role to your target role using LinkedIn’s Career Explorer tool
• Identify three to five people currently in your target role and study their career histories on LinkedIn
• Write a single paragraph describing what you want your professional life to look like in 24 months

This is one of the most underused things to do when bored at work and one of the highest-value. Most people spend more time planning a two-week holiday than they spend planning a career trajectory.

13. Reach Out to a Professional Contact You Have Been Meaning to Contact

Professional relationships deteriorate through neglect rather than conflict. A slow period is the ideal time to send a genuine, specific message to someone in your professional network you have not spoken to in more than three months.

What works in a professional outreach message:

• Reference something specific: a project they completed, an article they published, or a role change you noticed
• Keep it to three sentences maximum
• Ask one specific question rather than making an open-ended “let’s catch up” request
• Do not ask for anything in the first message after a long gap

A 2021 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology found that people consistently underestimate how positively their outreach is received after a period of silence. Most recipients welcome it.

14. Ask for Feedback From Your Manager or a Colleague

Requesting structured feedback during a quiet period rather than waiting for a formal review produces more useful developmental information and signals professional initiative to your manager.

A practical feedback request:

• Ask one specific question rather than “do you have any feedback for me”
• Focus on a recent piece of work or a skill area you are actively developing
• Give the person 48 hours to respond rather than requesting immediate verbal feedback

Example questions that produce useful responses: “What is one thing I could have done differently on the X project?” or “Where do you think I have the most room to develop in the next six months?”

Things To Do When Bored At Work: Creativity and Thinking

15. Write Something

Writing during quiet work periods is one of the things to do when bored at work with the widest range of application. What you write depends on your role and ambitions.

Writing activities with professional value:

1. Draft an article for your company blog or LinkedIn on a topic relevant to your expertise. Articles on LinkedIn from people with genuine professional knowledge regularly outperform generic content.
2. Write a post-mortem or learnings document from a recent project while it is still fresh. This is almost never done during the project itself and consistently valuable for the next one.
3. Draft a proposal for something you think your organisation should do differently. Written proposals are more likely to be considered than verbal suggestions.
4. Write a process document for a task only you currently know how to do. This reduces your organisation’s dependency on you for a single task while demonstrating systematic thinking.
5. Keep a work journal noting what you did, what you learned, and what you would do differently. Even three sentences per day compounds into valuable self-knowledge over a year.

16. Brainstorm Solutions to a Current Problem

An unstructured brainstorm session during a slow period produces ideas that time-pressured work rarely allows. Pick one genuine problem your team or organisation has and spend 15-20 minutes generating solutions without filtering.

Brainstorming methods that produce more useful output:

• Reverse brainstorming: Instead of asking “how do we solve X”, ask “how would we make X worse?” and then reverse every answer
• The five whys: Ask why a problem exists, then why that cause exists, five levels deep. The fifth why almost always reveals a different root cause than the one initially identified.
• SCAMPER method: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to other uses, Eliminate, Reverse. Apply each lens to a product, process, or problem.

17. Plan Your Week or Month in Detail

Most people plan at the level of daily task lists. Planning at the weekly or monthly level produces a qualitatively different orientation to work. A slow period is the ideal time for this kind of broader planning.

A 20-minute weekly planning session produces:

1. A clear picture of the three to five most important things to accomplish that week
2. Identification of any meetings or deadlines that need preparation
3. A realistic assessment of available time versus planned work
4. Specific time blocks for deep work scheduled before they get displaced by meetings

Cal Newport’s research at Georgetown University found that deliberate weekly planning is the single most consistent behaviour among high-performing knowledge workers in multiple studies.

Things To Do When Bored At Work: Wellness and Recovery

18. Take a Proper Walk

A 10-20 minute walk during a slow period is one of the most evidence-backed things to do when bored at work for both immediate mood and subsequent productivity.

The research is specific:

• A 2014 Stanford University study found that creative output increased by an average of 81% during and immediately after walking compared to sitting
• A 2020 meta-analysis in Sports Medicine found that even brief walking breaks significantly reduced workplace fatigue and improved mood
• NASA research found that a 26-minute nap improved cognitive performance by 34% in pilots; a walk produces comparable results without the logistical challenges of workplace napping

Walk outside if possible. Walking in natural settings produces stronger cognitive benefits than walking on a treadmill or through indoor corridors, according to the same Stanford research.

19. Do a 10-Minute Stretching or Movement Routine

Prolonged sitting is associated with musculoskeletal problems and reduced circulation that contribute directly to afternoon energy drops and reduced focus. A 10-minute movement routine during a slow period counteracts these effects without requiring a gym or specialist equipment.

Effective desk-adjacent stretches:

1. Neck rolls: 10 slow rotations in each direction, targeting the upper trapezius
2. Chest opener: Clasp hands behind your back, squeeze shoulder blades together, hold for 30 seconds
3. Hip flexor stretch: Step one foot forward in a lunge, drop the back knee toward the floor, hold 30 seconds each side
4. Wrist circles: 10 rotations in each direction, particularly useful for keyboard workers
5. Thoracic rotation: Sit upright, cross arms over chest, rotate torso left and right 10 times each

The NHS recommends breaking prolonged sitting every 30 minutes with movement for adults in sedentary roles.

20. Practice a Brief Breathing or Focus Exercise

A 5-10 minute breathing exercise during a slow period reduces cortisol, improves focus for the subsequent work period, and costs nothing in terms of visible workplace activity.

Two techniques with documented evidence:

Box breathing (used by US Navy SEALs for stress regulation):

1. Inhale for 4 counts
2. Hold for 4 counts
3. Exhale for 4 counts
4. Hold for 4 counts
5. Repeat for 4-5 cycles

4-7-8 breathing (developed by Dr. Andrew Weil, based on pranayama):

1. Inhale through the nose for 4 counts
2. Hold for 7 counts
3. Exhale completely through the mouth for 8 counts
4. Repeat for 4 cycles

Both techniques activate the parasympathetic nervous system and reduce the physiological markers of stress within 4-5 minutes.

Things To Do When Bored At Work: Relationship Building

21. Have a Genuine Conversation With a Colleague

Research from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania found that workplace relationships are a stronger predictor of job satisfaction and retention than salary above a baseline threshold. Slow periods are an opportunity to invest in these relationships rather than defaulting to surface-level desk exchanges.

Conversation starters that produce actual conversation rather than pleasantries:

• “What are you working on that is going well at the moment?”
• “Is there anything on your plate that I could help with?”
• “What has been the most interesting thing you have learned recently?”
• “What would you do differently about [recent shared project]?”

These are among the most underrated things to do when bored at work because they produce returns that accumulate invisibly over months and years.

22. Mentor or Help a More Junior Colleague

If a slower period coincides with a colleague working on something you have experience with, offering specific help is one of the highest-value uses of that time. Mentoring improves your own understanding of a skill or subject through the process of explaining it, as documented by research on the Protégé Effect at Washington University.

Practical forms this can take:

1. Reviewing a junior colleague’s document before it goes to a manager and giving specific feedback
2. Walking someone through a process you know well while they do it for the first time
3. Sharing a resource, template, or framework that saved you time when you were at their stage

Things To Do When Bored At Work: By Available Time

Time Available	Best Activities
5-10 minutes	Breathing exercise, inbox triage, stretch routine, brief colleague conversation
15-20 minutes	One course module, industry article reading, expense claims, task list review
20-45 minutes	Inbox zero session, CV update, LinkedIn profile refresh, write a draft
45-60 minutes	Full file reorganisation, study session, full brainstorm, workspace reset
60+ minutes	Complete a course section, write a full proposal, full inbox zero with unsubscribing

Things To Do When Bored At Work: By Work Context

Work Context	Best Activities
Open office, visible	Read industry articles, organise files, take an online course
Remote work	Online learning, writing, deep admin catch-up, virtual colleague outreach
Between meetings	Task list review, brief walk, breathing exercise, plan the afternoon
Quiet Friday afternoon	CV update, professional outreach, weekly planning, file reorganisation
Unexpected cancellation	Course module, write something, research career goals

FAQs: Things To Do When Bored At Work

Is it normal to feel bored at work?

Yes. A 2021 Gallup poll found that 64% of US employees are not actively engaged at work on any given day. Boredom at work is a normal human experience that signals under-stimulation rather than personal failure. Using slow periods deliberately rather than passively is the most practical response.

What are the most productive things to do when bored at work?

Learning a relevant skill on a free platform, clearing your inbox to zero, updating your CV and LinkedIn profile, completing deferred admin tasks, and researching your next career move all produce lasting professional value. These are the things to do when bored at work with the highest return on time invested.

What should you avoid doing when bored at work?

Avoid extended passive social media scrolling, which research consistently links to lower mood and reduced focus compared to other activities. Avoid activities that signal disengagement visibly in an office setting. Avoid filling time with low-value tasks simply to appear busy rather than using slow periods for genuine development.

How do you stay productive when there is genuinely no work to do?

Use slow periods for learning, career development, admin catch-up, and relationship building. These activities produce real professional value and are legitimate uses of work time. If chronic under-stimulation is ongoing, raise it directly with your manager and ask for additional responsibility. Persistent boredom without action is the most harmful response.

How do you deal with long-term work boredom?

Short-term boredom during slow periods is manageable with the activities in this guide. Chronic long-term boredom, where most working hours feel consistently under-stimulating, usually requires a structural change: a different role, additional responsibility, a new project, or a conversation with your manager about workload. Using the career development activities here during bored periods builds the profile needed to make that change.

Are there things to do when bored at work that help your mental health?

Yes. Walking, stretching, breathing exercises, and genuine conversations with colleagues all have documented positive effects on workplace wellbeing. A 2020 study in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology found that even brief physical activity breaks during the workday significantly reduced emotional exhaustion and improved mood ratings compared to continuous sedentary work.

Final Words

The things to do when bored at work that produce the best outcomes are the ones connected to something that genuinely matters to you, whether that is a skill you want to develop, a career move you want to make, an admin backlog you want to clear, or simply the physical and mental reset that a walk provides. Slow periods at work are not wasted time by default.

They are only wasted if you spend them scrolling rather than using them deliberately. The things to do when bored at work that you choose today compound quietly into a professional profile, a skill set, and a working life that is meaningfully different a year from now.