If you have ever tried to shred a huge stack of papers with a small Deskside Shredder you probably know what happens after a few minutes of shredding. These smaller shredders are designed to shut themselves off after five, ten or fifteen minutes (if you are lucky) of continuous shredding. They then require a cool down period roughly equivalent to the time that you spent shredding. Thus, you can shred for five or ten minutes and then need to take a break for five or ten minutes.

The first time that I discovered this feature I thought that I had simply broken my shredder. I was cleaning out my office and had a huge number of documents that needed to be shredded. About a third of the way through my pile my shredder suddenly stopped. I tried unplugging it, plugging it into another outlet, persuading with it and hitting it a few times without success. I was just about to rush out and buy a new shredder when I decided to try it one more time and much to my amazement it worked again. Of course, all of this repeated again after working my way through another third of my pile.

Most of the small personal and home office shredders on the market are designed for very light shredding and won't hold up to the strain of larger shredding jobs. Thus, it is important to choose the right size when you consider buying a shredder for your office to share. Although there are plenty of features to consider when you start looking for a shredder, I would strongly suggest looking for a shredder with a continuous duty motor for your office. These shredders are specifically designed to not need a break from shredding like their smaller shredding counterparts. If I had one of these continuous duty shredders I wouldn't need to take a break to curse at my shredder. Instead, I could get done with my shredding and move on to something more productive.

For home offices and desk side applications a continuous duty shredder may not be necessary. However, in offices where time is money and where five, ten or fifty people may be sharing a single shredder having a continuous duty shredder is essential. If the shredder is overheated and not working more than likely sensitive information will end up in the trash and almost no company can afford to have that happen. So when you consider buying a shredder for your office consider choosing a larger shredder with a continuous duty motor.