Burning downtime

[Angry Jedi]

I'm new to this whole "having a day job with actual downtime" thing -- my past lives have included being a teacher and a retail monkey, neither of which are jobs where you can easily slack off, and a games journalist, where it's very easy to slack off since you're working from home.

I find myself about 15 minutes before time to go home in my new job, however, and there is literally nothing left to do today. Let's hear some of your best ways of filling downtime while on the clock -- other than posting here, of course!

[Raven2785]

2 words: mobile games, just wip out your 3DS/Vita and have a quick game of something fast and arcadey. Or if you don't want to wip them out/cannot wip them out, a phone game might be the one thing for you, some Kairosoft games (the *Fill blank here* Story sim games) puzzle games, Racing games are good to have in that span of time (I recommend CSR racing, drag racing game that gives you that feel of street racing that the very first NFS Underground did)

No game? this is also a good time to carry a magazine/newspaper with you then, book might be ok too, but books lend themselves to be an experience you want to sit down for longer periods of time with, 15 minutes might not cut it.

[Angry Jedi]

I hate most phone games (I spent a year reviewing them; it was enough to make me swear them off forever, largely due to the ever-present freemium crap) and I need to at least look like I might be doing something useful, so the 3DS and Vita are out too, unfortunately. (Been playing Velocity 2X on my lunch break, though; that's a perfect lunchtime game.)

Book or magazine isn't a bad idea, though again it's a bit obvious that I'm not working!

Reading generally isn't a terrible way to burn time, though. Since quitting social media, I've found myself reading more diverse sites on the Internet; I'm keeping up with the news a lot more, and I've been exploring many other bloggers' work through the WordPress app, too.

[Raven2785]

Then you've only one choice left... Become a redittor. XD

If you expressly need to look like you're working, then looking up a good site that you can be on for spending some time isn't a bad idea either, hell, I knew someone who wasted time at work just talking to Cleverbot.

[Teryn]

Free-to-plays on Big Fish on the rare ocassion (though I'm just a troll, never pay anything). I have a strange, embarassing obsession with hidden object games. Oh! Should have mentioned this right off!

Here: http://www.rinkworks.com. Very low bandwidth personal site that grew bigger around the creators' likes and dislikes (movies, tech support, Princess Bride, text games, rogue-likes). I like the Adventure Games Live section best, which autosaves after every move, so if you have to close a window quick to start working, you can do it without losing your progress. The Computer Stupidities section is good for old-fashioned "it's not a drink holder?"-style Tech Support e-mails and transcribed phone call stories, some you can see a mile away, others are pleasant surprises.

[Angry Jedi]

Wow. That site is like stepping back through a time portal to the Internet of 1995. (That's no bad thing, incidentally. Thanks for the recommendation!)

[Teryn]

You're very welcome.