When leaving my desk, I like to run gone from the computer I am using. It's a simple little script that executes a forced standby on all of my machines to conserve power. This is important because I have 5 of them, not counting transient laptops.

Your machine may already be configured to enter a state of reduced power consumption after so many minutes. However, if you know that you're leaving immediately it would be prudent to expedite that transition, saving many minutes a few times a day over the course of a year.

It is an insignificant savings at the individual level, but in aggregate (that means everyone else that is not me) it is a good thing.

The incentive is to pad gone with more features that make it a useful utility to run when you are leaving your desk, even if just for a few minutes.

From wherever you stash your fork:

$ git clone http://github.com/ninegrid/gone.git .
$ ln -s ./gone ~/bin/gone

Edit the gone script and specify your own hostname(s).

$ gone

Currently I'm only using DPMS to put the monitors to sleep (I have 6 at my desk), but the plan is to make this a robust tool for reminding me to perform/confirm tasks before leaving my desk and to place all systems in modes of minimally viable power consumption until I return.

The Unlicense, free and unencumbered released into the public domain.