How to Cure Boredom at Work (On Lunchbreaks Of Course)

Work is boring, we all know this. It is wise – and encouraged by nice managers – that employees take frequent breaks. By having five minutes here and there most people will become more attentive and work harder. However, what do you do for five minutes? You’ll need something that’s distracting enough that your mind can wander away from work completely to have a little sleep whilst you occupy the rest of the brain on something silly. Here are some fun little ways to kill five minutes at work.

Africam

There is a website that allows you to view webcams that are set up in African nature reserves. You just pop them up and then you can sit and watch the plains and try to spot the wildlife. You can get lucky and see some incredible things, plus it’s quite relaxing if you put headphones on and listen to the birds and insects.

Read more after the jump:

The Wiki Game

I don’t know who thought of the Wiki Game, but it’s brilliant. It essentially gives you a random Wikipedia page and tells you you need to find another page by clicking on the links within the articles until you reach the destination. You might start off on the Heineken page and have to get to the Lion page in the fewest clicks. It’s strangely addictive and you feel like a genius when you get there in only a small amount of clicks.

The Chive

If you’ve only got five minutes then why not have a laugh at some pictures and videos? The Chive is one of many sites on the internet that features a host of constantly updated pictures. What makes The Chive stand out, though, is that it’s got such a massively wide range of topics to look at, plus when you’ve finished looking at one gallery, they’ve probably already uploaded another one.

Geoguessr

I’ve wasted a lot of my life playing Geoguessr and I’m still not very good at it. It is essentially Google Earth, but the game drops you onto a random point on the planet and you have to guess where you are. You can travel in any direction along the roads all you want and for as far as you want and then you have to try and pick where you ended up. Tip: always try and read the language the road signs are in, that way you’ll get a good indication … unless it’s Spanish.

Little Alchemy

Another great little game, Little Alchemy lets you combine basic elements (not the periodic table kind) to try and make new elements that can then be combined again and so on until you’ve created them all. There are 550 in total to try and find by combining just a few to start with. It’s fun and challenging.

If your boss is nice enough to let you have breaks, or you hate your job and don’t care if you get caught playing games during the work day, then the sites mentioned here will keep you occupied on those long Fridays when you’re dreaming of the pub.

Images from Strange Beauty by Yan Yugay for Design SCENE