<p>I do some surfing from work but I do work after my hours are done too. True slackers have always been slackers. Either they spent too much time on personal calls or they hung out at the water cooler chatting too much. </p>
<p>But seriously, sometimes you need a mental break. Even the highest functioning adult can only focus for so long without a mini brain break. When what you’re working on starts to get blurry and you can’t think straight anymore, sometimes you need a little break. There was actually a study that showed that employees who take short (10 minute) breaks to surf the web, are MORE productive.
[Web</a> Browsing Makes Workers Happier, More Productive (Study) - ABC News](<a href=“Web Surfing Makes for Happier, More Productive Workers - ABC News”>Web Surfing Makes for Happier, More Productive Workers - ABC News)</p>
<p>There are times when I’m working where I’m in the zone. I understand the specs well, have an idea on how to do my work and the code just flows from my fingers. That’s what I’ve been doing for a few weeks. Right now I have a file to edit on my 27 inch iMac at home that’s waiting for me and a little inspiration.</p>
<p>There are times when I’m in frequent interrupt mode and that’s the worst time to work on stuff that requires a lot of concentration. The nice thing is that I don’t get a lot of interruptions working at home or at night.</p>
<p>I don’t know if web browsing makes me more productive but sometimes I need a break from something that requires a lot of concentration.</p>
<p>I have been unemployed for a few months (hence my rapidly growing CC post total!). But when at work, I have a few boundaries I have set for myself:</p>
<ul>
<li>Rarely shop or purchase anything at work. Only exception is event/play tickets going on sale at a given time, just can’t wait on those. But that is really rare.</li>
<li>Never access financial websites. I figure IT can see my keystrokes if they want to… don’t want any risk of the security of my passwords. (Also one reason I do not shop, don’t want to enter my credit card there)</li>
<li>Almost never stream any kind of video (even news stuff). I figure that is a high bandwidth use, and not what my employer has in mind</li>
<li>I do have my personal email open all day, and frequently check it. Some of my business contacts use it, but I do sometimes reply to personal emails during the day.</li>
<li>I am a news junkie. I try to limit my news viewing to lunchtime at my desk, and a quick check mid-morning and mid-afternoon. But occasionally between tasks it calls my name…</li>
</ul>
<p>I have a professional job and I spend time on the Internet during my workday. I am a fast reader/surfer and can flip through sites while I’m on conference calls or waiting for something to print. I handle a lot of work emails from home and am always connected and responsive, so I don’t feel the least bit guilty. Facebook is blocked at our company, although I have access since I’m “special”. It is silly to block it anyway, since everyone just uses their smartphones to check it. At my last company a “top 10” Internet usage list was given to managers each month. You didn’t want to be on that list, but otherwise it is fully recognized that employees spend a lot of time online. If someone isn’t getting his or her work done, then it becomes an issue. The line between work and home is very, very blurry now.</p>
<p>Since our Marketing department is busy (lol) I skim a couple of web sites a day related to consumer electronics and technology (ie Engadget). I also follow a few companies on Yahoo Finance because we are partners, suppliers, customers, etc.</p>
<p>I also keep up with video gaming industry happenings because of cross-marketing opportunities and technology insights.</p>
<p>I would say an hour a day, semi work related. The boss loves it.</p>
<p>If surfing is a problem in the office and you can work at home, then you could just setup a multi-monitor system with the VPN stuff running in a virtual machine on one monitor and personal stuff on another monitor. You could also setup a multi-system and multi-monitor system to do this.</p>
<p>This is what I am using right now. A Windows Core i7 machine running personal stuff with 2 21-inch monitors, a 27 inch iMac running a Windows XP Virtual Machine connected to the office through VPN and my 17-inch MacBook Pro where I keep my specs, work diary and status reports. They are all connected with one keyboard and mouse using Synergy (multi-system keyboard/mouse control software). I’d love to have a 27 inch monitor at the office but I’m too cheap to buy one to leave in the office. If they come down to $300, maybe. I have two of my own displays and one of my own computers in the office but I’m slowly bringing them home as the office has given me more equipment lately.</p>
<p>At my former job, we were not permitted to use the Internet for personal reasons. In addition, we signed an IT agreement annually and it included acknowledging that any Internet usage was monitored. Shopping sites were blocked. We had to get special permission to access google images (used sometimes in my job). I did receive emails from my husband and kids at my work email address if they needed to reach me during the
Day</p>
<p>My employer blocks facebook, but my department has permission and open access to social networking sites. A large part of my job is finding information about people, and that could be facebook, whitepages.com, twitter, pretty much anything. So we are supposed to be able to access all of that. We occasionally run into snags (did you know that you can watch videos on IMDB? It’s blocked because it’s streaming media) and we’ve had to fight to get our (unpaid) interns access but for the most part, it works well. And then they change the filters and for a day, nobody can access Google. :)</p>
<p>I’m not sure if I can think of anyone in my department who doesn’t occasionally spend time on non-work related internet things. I know I’ve seem gmail open on everybody’s computers. I think there’s a big difference between being able to see if important emails come in and spending your entire day updating facebook at chatting with friends – which people do do and I know that (and some of them are my facebook friends so I’ve seen the updates).</p>
<p>I had an co-op job at a financial company that kept a separate out-of-network computer in the lobby for employees to check personal email and such.</p>
<p>Ah yes, I’ve heard that coders can be quite productive if they get in the “zone.” Interruptions (like surfing the net) would definitely interfere with that flow.</p>
<p>Barnard –</p>
<p>I think it’s great to take mental breaks. But when I used to work, I would get up and walk around for awhile.</p>