Maximizing downtime

Today, the folks at my office experienced a morning and afternoon of technological limbo. We have been in the midst of a server upgrade since last week and the people from our Internet Service Provider (who will not be named) were in the office doing some work today. As a result, we were offline for most of the day and not just that – we had to log out of our computers.

Since we could not use our desktops, I was unable to do my normal tasks such as replying to e-mails and compiling documents. Instead, I wandered over to where Mary, my fellow PP55 fellow, sits and we had a conversation. What happened was that we saw people we don’t normally see creep out of their offices and talk to each other. (I’m guilty of the same thing – sitting with my headphones on and my door closed when I’m taking minutes from conference calls.)

Mary and I were discussing our social media efforts when a brainwave hit – why don’t we grab some photos of the staff at the Housing Development Fund and post a sound-bite from each of them on our Facebook page? This could give prospective clients a better idea of who the people “behind-the-scenes” are and what they actually do.

This led to a conversation about photographers and events with our Director of Operations, Joanne, who sits in an office near Mary. This was when we realized that we really should make sure we have the personal contact information of the event photographer we really like, so that we keep in touch even if she were to leave the company she is working for right now.

Later on, our colleague Debbie, the Director of Counseling, came over and told us about a credit workshop she was going to run in the afternoon. I asked her if we could take a look at her slides since Mary and I were just starting out in terms of building our credit history. Not only did we get to read the slides, but Debbie also gave us a nutshell version of her workshop which was really useful.

And then, since the computers were still not online, Mary and I joined in a massive collective effort led by Valerie, our Director of Lending, to organize our filing system – checking and ordering the client files alphabetically from left-to-right, and removing damaged dividers in the drawers. Since we had five people sorting through the drawers, we got that done within an hour.

Takeaways? Downtime doesn’t need to be wasted time. It can be the time to do important things (like doing "maintenance" for the filing system) that usually take a backseat when we are constantly barraged by e-mails and other tasks. Downtime is a great time to connect with colleagues face-to-face. This might be that opportunity to walk over and learn from the expertise of someone else in your organization. In the midst of your conversations, you might even come up with some innovative ideas. Come to think about it, downtime can be pretty productive too.