Ask Slashdot: What To Do With New Free Time? 299
An anonymous reader writes "After 25 years of doing IT (started as a PC technician and stayed on technical of IT work through out my career) I've been moved to a position of doing only on call work (but paid as if it is a normal 9-5 job). This leaves me with a lot of free time... As someone who's used to working 12+ hours a day + the odd night/weekend on call, I'm scared I'll lose my mind with all the new free time I'll have. Any suggestions (beyond develop hobbies, spend time with family) on how to deal with all the new free time?"
get a library card (Score:5, Insightful)
get a library card, and learn about something you've always been interested in.
Life (Score:5, Insightful)
Has work so drained your soul that you have forgotten how to live?
Porn (Score:3, Insightful)
Porn. Furious amounts of porn.
An Understatement (Score:4, Insightful)
Volunteer work (Score:4, Insightful)
I am a volunteer firefighter/EMT and the biggest joy is when the frail old lady you just helped thanks you. I'm sure you can find a number of places where you can make a difference.
Re:so many things (Score:3, Insightful)
uh... (Score:3, Insightful)
develop skills (Score:5, Insightful)
polish your CV (Score:5, Insightful)
Education... (Score:4, Insightful)
Check to see if your company has an educational program where they reimburse their employees for taking university courses. If so, see if you can sign up for a degree program (i.e. Masters in IT or an MBA). Taking 1 Masters level course at a time, while working, will eat up a lot of time, taking 2 will eat up most of it.
There are a lot of people on here who do not understand the value of university education, so don't let their opinions sway you if it's something that you would like to do. After all, if the company is paying for it, why not take advantage of the opportunity.
Re:uh... (Score:4, Insightful)
Because it's a question... and this is "Ask Slashdot".
Think about it. If I had to ask any community for advice on slacking, Slashdot has got to be the absolute optimum target.
Just be grateful this particular "Ask Slashdot" isn't asking us to engineer his sound system or solve his failing interpersonal relations at work.
It's simple. (Score:5, Insightful)
Learn shit.
Do shit.
Re:Life (Score:4, Insightful)
It is common for an it guy to get stuck waiting in the main loop when there is no new input. Beyond ones existing hobbies, i would recommend turning to your wife for recommendations. She is supposed to know you well. /dev/null
something like
ssh wife "dd if=/dev/urandom bs=1M count=1" >
should fill up your own entropy pool quite nicely and refresh your imagination.
Re:so many things (Score:5, Insightful)
Is this actually a problem for people? Nothing to involve their lives?
Geez, if I won the lottery tomorrow, I'd walk outta work without a backwards glance, and be overjoyed to have time for ME to do all the stuff I like doing when NOT having to come to work.
Are there actually that many people that are so tied up in their jobs, that they don't have a personality and a life outside of it?
If so.......sad.
Update your skills (Score:4, Insightful)
If you only exercise your IT skills when called, you'll probably find yourself a lot less marketable if/when this new gig dries up.
Assuming you're on the verge of retirement, I'd work aggressively during this time to stay marketable.
Re:so many things (Score:5, Insightful)
It happens, I knew a man, a lifer in one of the byzantine public sector warrens hereabouts, he worked 40 years doing the exact same thing day after day after day and then retired. Two years later he was dead, just didn't have any direction or drive in his life, and couldn't cope with it. I believe some long term prison inmates face the same problem. Personally I'd have gone completely insane living like that in the first place.
Anyway to keep things on-topic, learn my friend, learn all you can. The internet is chock full of information about all sorts of amazing things, use it! Use it hard. I have ~140 tabs just on educational subjects open at any given time.
Cycling (Score:4, Insightful)
Step 1: Get a bicycle.
Step 2: GTFO.
Seriously, get out there. I've so enjoyed cycling, exploring new places, taking pictures, getting kicked out of places I shouldn't be, etc.
Even better if you can find someone to do it with.
Re:Mod parent -1, Redundant ;) (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I'm doing anything "useful" with my spare time in that sense, but I'm certainly enjoying it.
To me, this is very important. I've seen a few people around me who so got in the habit of always being busy at work, that they crammed what little free time they had with activities and hobbies as well. And I've been there myself. Of course, hobbies are fine, but I am a lot happier overall after I started "pissing away" (as I used to call it) some of my free time. Just doing whatever I feel like, which includes doing nothing at all except lying on the lawn with a beer, gazing up at the sky. A little down time for the brain, no distractions, calls, or tablets near at hand, helps me perform better at work as well.
Re:so many things (Score:3, Insightful)
Winning the lotto implies you have the money to do those things.
If I had 40 more hours of free time, but the same amount of money I have now, I'd love it, but I certainly wouldn't be able to just do more of the things I love. Also, I like doing things with the people in my life, and they'd still all have jobs. It can see how it'd get tedious.