Dear Human Resource,

Heres a question, one that has bugged me throughout my professional life.

Ive heard that the average desk workerwhich I amspends about 45% of their workday doing actual work.

That definitely describes my work day.

But because Im bound by rather nebulously defined office hours, Im stuck here from morning to evening.

What can be done?!

You might not want to wait on that.

And for what its worth, time-fritterers even include peoplelike mewho are self-employed and work at home.

So the key question to ask yourself is what youdratherbe doing with your goof-off minutes and hours.

And the most important bit of that advice isask yourself.

So here are some possibilities.

Theres a decent chance you could make that happen.

Consider what existing projects or initiatives at your company that you might get involved in.

Consider what projects or initiatives you canstart.

Talk to your manager about areas where help is needed and your skills could be useful.

Think about skills youd like to acquire and what you could do to put you on that path.

Help out your peers.

Take on new responsibility.

If what will satisfy you is a more challenging work day, challenge yourself.

Consider finding a work situation thats actually engaging.

Or start something new that tracks closer to your real interests.

(You may end up workinglongerhours, but perhaps youll enjoy it?)

You may well, like me, still end up wasting chunks of the work day.

But at least you wont be doing it to in acquiescence to someone elses demands.

Or maybe I was just way more efficient at doing my job than theyd expected?

For a while, he killed time shopping on eBay or playing games.

He plotted his first books and networked with people whose work he admired.

Eventually he quit, co-founding business and producing a series of entertaining side projects.

But the point isnt that you oughta become an entrepreneur or write books, per se.

I didnt have a particular plan or end goal in mind, Josh concluded.

But it was important to me to use that time creativelywhich is not the same thing as productively.

That last point is important.

It may take some thought and experimentation.

Send your work-world questions to[email protected].

Questions may be edited for length and clarity.