It has been a very trying time for all of us across the planet, with COVID-19 still lurking around as new variants pop up, while having to also deal with the growing spread of monkeypox. As for me, I’ve had a couple of bad colds since the start of the pandemic, but one was before commercial testing was available (maybe COVID? But probably not!), and the other was more recent and was definitely not COVID (lucky me!). In fact, I have to say that because of certain choices I have made to avoid the big bad disease as well as other preventable diseases, this has been the least I’ve experienced illness in quite some time.

With labs across the country in various stages of reopening, it can be tough to transition right back into the physical office after months of working from home. Throughout your typical day in the lab, you may find that there are many instances where you've got a few odd minutes (or even hours) here and there. Oftentimes, these periods are used to scroll through your phone or catch up on social media. Here are five suggestions on how to productively fill in those gaps while you're waiting for your experiments to run.