Do you make productive use of idle time?

[Gori the Grey]

45 minute highway drive today. Light traffic. Near the end of it, I realized I'd spent the whole 45 minutes with my mind just wandering. Could remember some of the topics I'd thought about, even some of the chains of association that led from one thing to another, but I had to conclude that I'd really just let my mind flit about uselessly.

Trip back, I decide to experiment with whether I can actually get anything productive done in such circumstances. Turns out: nope. I don't have any kind of matter where I can make sequential progress when it's just me and my thoughts.

How 'bout you all? Can you make productive use of idle time like that? Think through how to approach some interpersonal challenge more effectively? Advance a workplace project? Conjugate verbs in some language you're learning? Review the state capitals? Plan your next killer CFC post?

Or does your mind just wander?

 

[Kyriakos]

I think that the older one gets, the less likely they are to make progress in such free thought circumstances. Cause they are not as likely to be focused so much on one object which would allow for constant ability to bounce back to it.

If you are only looking at a maze as something you will be staying in for some hour or less, there isn't much of an incentive to alter it. Whereas if you actually live in the maze 24/7...

 

[Valka D'Ur]

45 minute highway drive today. Light traffic. Near the end of it, I realized I'd spent the whole 45 minutes with my mind just wandering. Could remember some of the topics I'd thought about, even some of the chains of association that led from one thing to another, but I had to conclude that I'd really just let my mind flit about uselessly.

Trip back, I decide to experiment with whether I can actually get anything productive done in such circumstances. Turns out: nope. I don't have any kind of matter where I can make sequential progress when it's just me and my thoughts.

How 'bout you all? Can you make productive use of idle time like that? Think through how to approach some interpersonal challenge more effectively? Advance a workplace project? Conjugate verbs in some language you're learning? Review the state capitals? Plan your next killer CFC post?

Or does your mind just wander?

My mind tends to turn toward thinking about whatever I'm writing, or (as in tonight) trying to seriously ask myself if I really need that takeout food I've been thinking about ordering.

 

[Narz]

I listen to educational youtubes while driving/walking

 

[Zelig]

I listen to educational youtubes while driving/walking

Ugh, youtube is such a miserably bad media format for that. Podcasts are so much better in every way.

(I suggest youtube-dl for content that's youtube exclusive, to avoid dealing with the dumpster fire of the platform.)

 

[Birdjaguar]

Letting your mind wander is an integral part of both being creative and finding solutions to problems. You should do it more often, not less.

 

[stinkubus]

If I make productive use of the time it isn't really idle.

I enjoy my idle time. Most folks are way to preoccupied with being "productive".

 

[Narz]

Ugh, youtube is such a miserably bad media format for that. Podcasts are so much better in every way.

(I suggest youtube-dl for content that's youtube exclusive, to avoid dealing with the dumpster fire of the platform.)

YouTube is great! Easy to search, subscribe and total worth the $10 a month for premium so you can play the video with your phone closed and avoid ads (also you can download vids for use on planes/subways/places with no wifi).

Can search & find almost any song, make custom playlists, YouTube is the best aspect of the modern Internet by far. Kids today are so lucky to have it.

 

[Perfection]

Every post i make is a work of art.

 

[Hrothbern]

Mind wandering is for me like the company of a dear comrade.
Comfortable and useful.
Unlocking the team of my subconsciousness.

As a teenager bicycling was my endurance training for my real sport volleybal, and the holidays with my parents were 4 week bicycling travels and camping through Belgium and Germany.
A lot of boring autopilot became daydreaming and mindwandering.
Not about fears, struggling issues and regrets, but positive digesting, forward and creative. Also a lot of going through playing patterns and scenarios of volleybal, digesting situations that happened, like looking at vids and doing it again.

After two severe bike accidents at 18 and 19, my right knee hit twice, I quit my heavy sport trainings, felt like a handicapped person, had suddenly heaps of free time, and after acquiring a good side income, private lessons, embraced the students life of going out every late evening, and spend my time after dinner typical with reading for two hours, followed by two hours mindwandering, beforing going out. I considered too much sleeping as a waste of time, and believed (without any evidence) that mindwandering as dream like state would be more effective, more focused. So I learned to switch to that trance like state and learned to "load" my mind with "direction" by conscious touching upon certain topics, conscious choosing personas for "internal discussing" before switching.

Later on in my life there was less and less time for it, too much interactions, until my job required a lot of travelling, most of which by car in the late afternoon early evening and after the phone calls died out and the rational digesting of the day was done, I switched again to regular mindwandering.
The method of "loading" my mind with "direction" for the mindwandering I used also for falling asleep. "Touching" on topics but not really going into them to prevent not falling asleep at all. The positive effect that I had the next morning under the shower a lot of answers to issues. I integrated that in my work by mostly having a drink in the evening with the people I more formally met the next day, hearing their issues, wishes in the evening, and coming back on it the next day.

I can recommend to anyone to find his own comrade of reflection, solution finding, creativity by mindwandering

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Every post i make is a work of art.

Or fart - close enough imo...

I listen to educational youtubes while driving/walking

There is a planty of amazing content on YT and the platform has potential to introduce someone to a more serious study of some subject.

Letting your mind wander is an integral part of both being creative and finding solutions to problems. You should do it more often, not less.

I have some good results with this approach but it seems to me there is a secret to it. If you just simply let mind wonder it seems to me it can get overly destructive as it often tends to negative side of reality. I suggest one first practises some form of concentration or meditation and then unleashes ones mind as a form of assimilative process since the force created by an inner exercise has a capacity to keep the wondering mind in check.


@OP time is the most precious thing we have. That being said good and powerful relaxation is sometimes the best use of it.

 

[The_J]

I listen to educational youtubes while driving/walking

Ugh, youtube is such a miserably bad media format for that. Podcasts are so much better in every way.

Either way, having just something running in the background, to entertain the mind, that's the point.

I do not really have that much idle time (running or my weekly shaving), but I mostly listen to some self improvement videos on youtube.
Haven't tried something educational yet, might maybe too, if I find a good channel.

 

[AmazonQueen]

Depends what you consider productive doesn't it.
My mind rarely wanders except when insomnia is stopping me sleeping.
If I have an "idle" moment I'll either read or play a videogame or visit a forum.
None of these serve any economic purpose but I tend to consider time spent working wasted when I could be doing something more interesting or enjoyable instead.

 

[Cutlass]

Not really. Sometimes I do think through some things that I consider writing. But then when I can sit around and write them, I rarely get around to it. So even when trying to be productive, it rarely ends up that way.

 

[Ryika]

I used to be like that, always trying to think about something productive when I don't have anything productive to do, and I would say I'm reasonably good at it, but these days I think it's a pretty dumb thing to do. It seems to me, that we value being "productive" way too much, and underestimate the creative power of just not being productive and instead just allowing the mind to go wherever it wants to go for a while.

 

[Zkribbler]

45 minute highway drive today. Light traffic. Near the end of it, I realized I'd spent the whole 45 minutes with my mind just wandering. Could remember some of the topics I'd thought about, even some of the chains of association that led from one thing to another, but I had to conclude that I'd really just let my mind flit about uselessly.

Not exactly true. The left hemisphere of your brain, the logical part, may have gone on vacation but the right hemisphere, the part that deals with spacial relationships took over. It was hyper-aware of distances, velocities, etc. During that time, you were being an excellent driver.

 

[Synobun]

How 'bout you all? Can you make productive use of idle time like that? Think through how to approach some interpersonal challenge more effectively? Advance a workplace project? Conjugate verbs in some language you're learning? Review the state capitals? Plan your next killer CFC post?

Or does your mind just wander?

There was a day that I used my idle time to think about things that mattered. I'd also think about the best way to solve problems in my dreams since for me they are essentially just continuations of thought.

But at some point it switched over to it being the reality that being alone with my thoughts, focused on problems of life, was not good. I became, and still am, overly reliant on distraction to keep problematic thoughts at bay. It works most of the time but is working less and less as time goes by.

These days I try and focus on things that don't matter. Inflating their worth to be comparable or more than what actually is at stake. It's not viable for the long term but I suppose that's acceptable when you are no longer concerned with the idea of a long term.

 

[Ryika]

Unless you're terminally ill, that sounds like you need a hobby.

 

[Synobun]

That is my hobby. Haven't you been paying attention?

 

[Lohrenswald]

I don't even make productive use of work-time