I know we are supposed to be productive all the time, but a break away from working can actually be beneficial and lead to being more productive. We all know that trying to work on something for too long, especially if it is difficult work, often leads to diminishing returns and increased frustration, and possibly mistakes or accidents. Various studies such as this one, have shown that taking regular, smaller breaks from work can increase focus and the ability to work longer on tasks.
With all that serious talk over, I figured I’d share some really cool, fun things to do as a break away from working. These work quite happily on a PC, but really come to life when used on your interactive screen and with groups of people (using an attached or screenshared PC). Be warned though, you may find yourself playing these for longer than five minutes, so don’t blame me if you get in trouble!
A quick note in case the boss does ask, these games can often be great ways of getting to know how to use the screen and being comfortable with touch control and the different gestures.
Doesn’t mean it can’t be fun though!
Pointer Pointer
A really pointless (haha, geddit?) activity that when you move your mouse, or touch the screen in a certain spot, an image of a finger pointing to that will appear. Good for a short laugh.
Asteroid Launcher
Ever have a really bad day when you want to destroy everything? Well now you can. With asteroid launcher, you can select a wide range of settings such as size, speed and angle of the asteroid and then launch it at any location on the planet. It then gives a breakdown of the damage it has done. Not for the faint-hearted for sure, but great at releasing anger at virtually destroying areas
Guess the Year game.
In this game, you have 100 points to lose as you guess the year of events. Get the year wrong, and the gap between your guess and the correct year is removed from your 100 points. See how many questions you can get before your 100 points is gone.
#1 Song On Your Birthday
Does what it says on the tag. Find out the #1 song on the day you were born. There are some corkers out there!
A more depressing part of this though, is the timer that shows how many minutes have elapsed since your birth.
The Wiki Game – Wikipedia Game – Explore Wikipedia!
This one is great in a group. Get from one Wiki page to another between two totally unrelated subjects within a time limit. A fun and often difficult challenge to find links between two subjects.
Wikitrivia
Another fun knowledge game, drag the cards with an event on to a timeline to create the timeline in order. The cards give an event, but not the year, so it really does help to have good overall knowledge or take edumacated guesses. The game finishes when you get 3 wrong.
These should be a good start to having some fun with your interactive screens, and if you have any to share please do so in the comments.
I’ll find more as I go along and share them with you all further down the track, and I’ll also do serious ones to actually do some work!
