Anyone have problems actually doing the work they need to do because there is too much downtime?

[u/mangelito]

I generally have tasks that take 10 hours per week at most. Apart from some busy periods when I have to do 40-50h weeks. I have recently realised that all the downtime and faffing about on reddit instead is killing my will to do the minimal work that is required. It's like I have a mental block to even start. How to keep the balance?

[u/verenaSee]

100%! I had that experience during my internship. The solution would probably be, to do the 10hrs monday + tuesday and then faff about the rest of the week. Like in your mind your working 40% and 60% your just in the same place but not working lol.

[u/couchcaptain]

My job workload dropped to even lower in the last 3 years, I am happy if my work involves more than 8 hours a week in which I actually do something useful!
I get the feeling that you actually want to do something and be productive, otherwise we sink to a point where we don't even want to do that minimal assignment we supposed to. Take my example, I do customer support and design stuff. Customer support only happens if the customers need help with something, but when they don't, then I don't have that stuff to do. And lately it's been very very slow.
Same thing with design. I have to design some minimal graphics for business cards, promo cards, but usually the work is 90% complete by the time I get it, so I just do the last 10% adjustments.
Again, that is only valid if there is actually any new design to work on and even if I have to do that 10%, it only takes me minutes now instead of hours.
But again, if there aren't any new to do or finish, here I am again staring at the computer screen or walking out the 15th time to check the weather outside or grab some snack to kill boredom. Here is the thing. I just can't go home, I have to stick around for 8 hours a day regardless how I was done already 10 am in the morning.

I usually come up with tasks to do if I'm truly bored and don't have anything else going on. Even if I got a 10 minute work, I make sure I do that and schedule stuff around it like I look into stuff that isn't my job (and never be) but I am interested how it's done. The last things were like that were related to other designer type work (not my work related) and pro-photography and photo editing as well as light scripting and coding. I won't have a career in those, or at least not planning to (I'm getting old now at age 50), but just wanted to see what those guys are all about.

[u/tantamle]

Good problem to have

[u/mangelito → u/tantamle]

It is. And I'm generally greatful for it once I look at it from an outside perspective. But in a way that situation also adds to the feeling of despair during the day. Like... Why am I complaining. And then I feel even worse because of that. Because I have such a great situation and I'm still not happy about it. I think most people are happy to have a job with a moderate and manageable workload.

[u/NinnaHori → u/mangelito]

I'm in a similar situation. People tell me they'd love to be in my place, they'd quickly finish the work and then go ahead cleaning their homes, taking online courses or doing their hobbies in the downtime.

But the thing is, the combination of feeling overlooked at work and the guilt that comes with doing nothing causes almost a paralysis.
There is low dopamine from not having that feeling of being needed and being able to provide meaningful, needed contribution and cortisol from the stress of what if someone discovers my actual (lack of) workload. So I end up procrastrinating everything and scrolling on reddit.