Working while on the job

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It’s immoral and unethical to do side work while someone is paying you to do your actual job. As difficult as it is to get to work at forget about your moonlight endeavors, it MUST be done. Learn to focus on what you’re “supposed” to be doing and not what you might rather be doing. The reason you’re moonlighting is so that you can keep your job and security, but if you’re get caught doing side work you might not have your security much longer. Besides the fact that it’s just not the right thing to do.

However, subconsciously you will be thinking about your moonlighting endeavor(s) and it’s important to keep them within a “second or third level of consciousness” (behind your actual job) so that when you come across something that is relevant both to your day job AND your moonlighting, that you recognize that and put a placeholder in your mind as not to forget about it when you get home. Such things like company websites, software applications, online tools and calculators, etc. are a few examples among many other that can be useful to you in both vocations, and might be worth a quick email to yourself with a link, or if you use an online bookmarking tool like Google Bookmarks it’s really easy to just hit the “bookmark” button and then you’ll have it for later!

Also, don’t forget that despite what your job may require for work load, you are still legally entitled to a couple 15 minute breaks throughout the day during which (depending on the leniency of your job) you might not be able to directly work on side projects but you can at least think about it and be planning your next tasks in your head so that when you get back home you can hit the ground running.