When it comes to losses in office productivity, I've tried them all.

Oh, sure, there are the standards that I fall back on any given situation. You know, lack of organization, over attention to meaningless details, lack of willingness to delegate - they all come into play.

But then there are those that I share with my co-workers. Chief among them would be spending office time on www.rapidcityjournal.com, but don't look at me to discourage that habit. For one, it's my job to make sure I keep readers coming back. And secondly, it's my job to make sure I keep readers coming back.

But here are a few others of which I've been a practitioner in the past that seem to be on the most popular list.

Christmas shopping on the Web

While the hoopla around the impact of Black Monday (the Monday after Thanksgiving that is being touted as the online version of the Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving) is widely debated, the impact of Christmas shopping is real.

According to some, it could approach a half billion dollars, or more.

But others say the impact on the business world is over stated, in particular among smaller businesses. And one study shows that the biggest offender of online shoppers using office computers and office time to do their personal shopping over the Internet is - drum roll please - government workers.

Of course, the argument is that the time spent shopping on the Internet isn't really lost time, since many workers were already busy updating their blogs, surfing the Net for the latest celebrity news and instant messaging and that these activities are generally the ones that lose time to the Christmas shopping season.

That being said, the amount of time spent shopping on the Internet is markedly up from 25 years ago.

Air conditioning and heating systems

When I first began working in an office environment back nearly a quarter century ago, I came to work actually excited I would be working my summer job in an air-conditioned environment.

That lasted about 15 minutes.

The protector of the thermostat was an elderly woman whose ideal office temperature seemed to be measured better in degrees Kelvin versus something reasonable, something that seemed comfortable, something at which mercury would remain liquid.

So I spent a summer of working in 30 to 40 minute shifts, getting up for quick five minute breaks to step outside the office and warm up my hands. And this was in Lead, where it has been known to snow in every month of the year at some time in the past 125 years or so.

Still, I understand the role of the protector of the thermostat. Without one, madness can ensue, leading to long-running disagreements between co-workers, meetings with managers and threats of office civil war. Even worse, it could lead to a physical lock and key over the thermostat.

That being said, I think back to the office environment of the early 20th century and can only imagine what circle of hell one had to be banished to where they would be forced to work in a multi-level office environment in the heat of the summer with nothing but a single blade rotary fan as your defense.

Office talk

The average office worker is interrupted 73 times every day. And I am probably responsible for about 70 of those times in the Journal newsroom.

That's bad news for employers, who note that a single interruption not only causes loss of production for the primary impact point (the person who is being interrupted), but that person often shares the interruption, depending on the complexity of the task.

One of the key points to these disruptions is the way the office is configured. One of the reasons I am the king of interruptions in the newsroom is that my desk sits squarely in the middle of it all. That means that not only do I have easy access to interrupt individuals basically at will, but I can also hear many conversations that go on in the newsroom. Which, in turns, mean I'm more likely to interrupt.

In summation, reconfiguring offices to better accommodate private conversations and phone calls, could save the company a little. And banishing me to the basement with my red Swingline stapler would save the company even more.

Working in the dungeon

For many in the workplace, ergonomics is defined by where the mouse pad sits. There's a whole lot more to it than that, including acoustics, proximity to a window, good lighting, headsets and all kinds of spatial relationships with your fellow workers.

I don't claim to be an expert, but I do know this. Apart from the actual time lost to poor ergonomics to such things as carpal tunnel syndrome, headaches caused by the glare off the computer screen and similar circumstances, the grousing that such environments create can be significant.

Sports, sports, sports, sports

No, not the kind in which an employee might actually hurt themselves at the company picnic. No, were talking about a much more insidious form of athletics - fantasy football.

According to one study, fantasy football accounts for a productivity loss of about $500 million weekly during the 17-week National Football League season. Considering that games almost exclusively occur on Sundays, that's a remarkable figure.

But fantasy football isn't alone. There's fantasy baseball, fantasy basketball, fantasy hockey, fantasy NASCAR and even fantasy golf.

And how about March Madness? Well, apparently, it's a money suck as well, as a recent study nnoted that it would cost U.S. companies $889 million.

What do we take away from such information?

Block internet access to fantasy sports companies? Perhaps.

Invest in fantasy sports companies, or better yet, switch careers to take advantage of the most addictive activity since the Macarena. Oh, yeah.