Downtime

I was going to post before the weekend, when I had some downtime at work, but I discovered that I had forgotten to pay my hosting dues. The hosting company had disconnected service, so I ended up spending some time making sure my service was restored. Somewhat ironic, because the subject of my original post was going to be about downtime.

As a consultant, you spend a lot of time “on the bench.” That time is valuable, since it means that you can work from home or better yet, catch up with friends and family. You can use that time to do laundry and run errands, things that are difficult when you are hundreds of miles away from home.

I’m finding out that there is little downtime when you’re a Product Manager. I seem to be a constant level of busy. However, it robs me of my web surfing, news reading and competitive analysis that I am so good at. Facebook is getting less and less of my time.

I’ve come to realize that one of the most important attributes of an employee is the way that they use downtime. It’s easy to piddle it all away and hard to make constructive use of it. Consider it a victory when you come out downtime feeling like you accomplished something.