Don't waste time when you're not busy. Wouldn’t it be nice to have so much design work that you don’t have time during your work day for anything else? Come to think of it; I don’t know if I’d like that. I enjoy a bit of downtime now and then, and I’m sure you do too. Downtime, when your brain isn’t working at one hundred per cent concentrating on some important task or churning away pumping out those creative juices. You need time to give your brain a rest. It’s that old proverb “all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy”. Downtime is good. But downtime doesn’t have to be wasted time. Downtime can be put to good use and become productive time, benefiting your business while still giving your mind a break. The next time you feel that pull from the rabbit hole that is YouTube or Facebook, I want you to think of productive things you could be doing instead. To help you, I’m going to share ten productive things you can do when you’re not busy. Let me first state; If you are not busy because you don’t have any projects to work on, then you should ignore this list and concentrate your time on client acquisition. Your first concern as a business owner is to find work that pays the bills. If you can’t pay the bills, then you won’t have a business for long. What I’m talking about here are those non-busy times between projects. Those times when you complete something 30 minutes before lunch and don’t want to start a new project on an empty stomach. Or Friday afternoons when you know you should be working, but it’s the end of the week, and the design spirit isn't in you. Instead of wasting those moments doing something mundane and useless, try doing something productive with that time such as: 1) Organise your bookmarks. If you’re like me, you bookmark a lot of websites that at the moment, seem important, but over time, become redundant. And again, like me, you probably rarely take the time to clean our or organise those bookmarks. Downtime is the perfect time to look over your bookmarks and clean them up. 2) Clean out your email. Those times when you are not busy are the perfect times to look through your email inbox and delete unnecessary messages. You know the ones, the emails you put aside to look at later that you know you'll never read. Or funny jokes from friends that you'll never pass on. If your email client allows them, use smart mailboxes to sift through your email and delete anything that is no longer needed. This downtime is also the perfect opportunity to review your email subscriptions and determine which ones are worth keeping and which ones you should unsubscribe. 3) Watch a tutorial. I’m sure there are things you would like to know but never find the time to learn. If you’re going to immerse yourself in YouTube, why not make it a learning experience? Find tutorials and training videos that will benefit your business. If you're a proponent of Just In Time Learning look for interesting video tutorials and put them aside for viewing in the future. 4) Read business articles and books. Running your own design business means you are not only a designer but a business owner. And being a business owner is not something they teach in school. Use your spare time to brush up on your business skills. Thirty minutes is plenty of time to read an article or a chapter in a book. You’ll be expanding your knowledge and benefiting your business. 5) Organise your office. I don’t know any business owner that doesn’t have something in their office that needs organising. Most likely it’s that “catch-all” place. In my case, it’s the second drawer on my desk. It’s the place I put things when I don’t know where to put them. It’s my catch-all drawer. If you have a drawer or a place like that in your office, why not use your 15-30 minutes of downtime to sift through it and start organising its contents. 6) Research potential new clients. If you don’t feel like doing something physical such as organising a drawer, why not spend some time research