Do you make productive use of idle time?

[Kyriakos]

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.

You shouldn't play such games; it is quite dangerous (eg if at some point you forget the game, the game will go on by itself as repressed procedure.

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.

This doesn't sound good. Like the german girl said, unless you are terminally ill (and soon to die; which obviously i hope is not so) you really must try to change this attitude.

 

[Synobun]

You shouldn't play such games; it is quite dangerous (eg if at some point you forget the game, the game will go on by itself as repressed procedure.



This doesn't sound good. Like the german girl said, unless you are terminally ill (and soon to die; which obviously i hope is not so) you really must try to change this attitude.

I will take to heart this advice from someone who immediately goes for a low blow the second we disagree on something.

 

[Kyriakos]

I will take to heart this advice from someone who immediately goes for a low blow the second we disagree on something.

Hey, i wouldn't if i knew it could actually kill you!

(and really, you do so as well; if not attacked, i remain friendly too )
(that said, i apologize for the post you most likely refer to; it wasn't a good one, sorry)

 

[Birdjaguar]

And turning off the car radio/music is a good first step to daydreaming. Silence can be a great gift.

 

[Zelig]

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).

youtube-dl lets you just download audio without ads, and then you can use an actual nice media player app instead of the Google's youtube app.

Even if you actually want to use the youtube front-end, Google's youtube app on mobile is poor compared to various third-party apps, and the desktop site is borderline unusable without ublock/youtube annoyances filter lists/enhancer for youtube.

Can search & find almost any song, make custom playlists

So it's like Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal, etc. Except tied to your Google account, with fewer third party integrations, and with a worse selection and interface.

Don't get me wrong, I support paying for youtube if you make heavy use of their service, to reduce their ad-based revenue incentives, but it's not very good for music compared to music-exclusive services.

YouTube is the best aspect of the modern Internet by far. Kids today are so lucky to have it.

This makes me sad. youtube is an ad-delivery platform by the powerful corporation in the world, with content optimized for short attention spans.

Calling it the best aspect of the modern internet is an insult to wikipedia, podcasts, long-form written content, etc.

 

[Kyriakos]

And turning off the car radio/music is a good first step to daydreaming. Silence can be a great gift.

I don't own a car- i don't even know how to drive

 

[Gori the Grey]

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

I almost added a line to my opening post to anticipate replies like this. First (to take them in reverse order), I am not concerned with making every moment productive and enjoy idleness perfectly well, probably too well, and second, I am aware that surface-unproductivity might be the grounds for later creativity.

I was more struck by the return trip: that when I wanted to make deliberate, sequential progress along some line of thinking (just as an experiment with whether I could), I couldn't. My mind just again wandered here and there. I realized it was partly a function of my wandering mind and partly a function of the fact that I just didn't have any mental projects of the sort that could be advanced in such circumstances. I guess I could have run over the poems I have memorized. But I don't seem to have any other thing to do with my mind that I could set about getting done in such circumstances.

 

[Ryika]

I'd say it's probably a skill that needs to be learned like pretty much any other skill. Do it often, and you'll get better at it.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

what even is productive? for me, "productive" is what makes money or helps in making money. watching educational YouTube vids does not make me money, and the skills or knowledge learned seldom will help with anything. I hate the whole thought behind productive/leisure time and think it's truly one of the dumbest dichotomies of the modern world.

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.

"Matters of great concern should be treated lightly." Master lttei commented, "Matters of small concern should be treated seriously."

From the Hakagure. Or, in my case, from Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai with Forest Whitaker. Fantastic movie.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

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).

You actually pay for no ads? There are free ad-blockers that do that.

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

While you're "mindwandering", who is driving the car?

This makes me sad. youtube is an ad-delivery platform by the powerful corporation in the world, with content optimized for short attention spans.

Funny... I had no problem at all, watching a 90+-minute documentary yesterday. Or longer ones, when I'm in the mood for them. There are some pretty good documentaries available on that site, which is good for me since I canceled my Netflix account.

Calling it the best aspect of the modern internet is an insult to wikipedia, podcasts, long-form written content, etc.

Wikipedia is a good thing, but not all the wisdom of the world is found there.

what even is productive? for me, "productive" is what makes money or helps in making money. watching educational YouTube vids does not make me money, and the skills or knowledge learned seldom will help with anything. I hate the whole thought behind productive/leisure time and think it's truly one of the dumbest dichotomies of the modern world.

So nothing you do that doesn't result in money in your pocket is productive?

What a sad way to live.

 

[Synobun]

You actually pay for no ads? There are free ad-blockers that do that.

Presumably Narz uses it on a mobile device. Ad-blocking on apps is very hit or miss. Usually miss.

 

[Zelig]

Again, just use youtube-dl. Default is no ads.

 

[yung.carl.jung]

So nothing you do that doesn't result in money in your pocket is productive?

What a sad way to live.

Is doing an online course productive? Is drawing productive? Is writing productive? Is gardening productive? Is cleaning up productive? Is cooking well productive? Is working out productive? Is reading a classic productive? Is watching a documentary productive? Is listening to music productive? Is talking productive? Is thinking very hard productive? Since you are the arbiter, I would like to hear your opinions on those.

Is spending literal weeks or months of your lifetime watching Big Brother being productive? Is it a sad way to live?

 

[Lemon Merchant]

I don't get much idle time these days, but when I do, I prefer to do fun, unproductive things like gaming, or reading, or hanging out with my friends. I rarely watch TV, unless it's a Netflix movie or something like that.

God forbid I have a date or something...

 

[Broken_Erika]

Is doing an online course productive? Is drawing productive? Is writing productive? Is gardening productive? Is cleaning up productive? Is cooking well productive? Is working out productive? Is reading a classic productive? Is watching a documentary productive? Is listening to music productive? Is talking productive? Is thinking very hard productive? Since you are the arbiter, I would like to hear your opinions on those.

Is spending literal weeks or months of your lifetime watching Big Brother being productive? Is it a sad way to live?

Is posting on CFC productive?*

Spoiler :

*stupid question, posting here is the height of productivity!

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Is doing an online course productive? Is drawing productive? Is writing productive? Is gardening productive? Is cleaning up productive? Is cooking well productive? Is working out productive? Is reading a classic productive? Is watching a documentary productive? Is listening to music productive? Is talking productive? Is thinking very hard productive? Since you are the arbiter, I would like to hear your opinions on those.

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

All of the above are productive, whether they lead to money in your pocket (or wherever else you might keep your money) or not.

Is spending literal weeks or months of your lifetime watching Big Brother being productive? Is it a sad way to live?

Since it's only 3 hours/week and the show is over in September, I think you're exaggerating by quite a bit. I don't watch the live feeds. I'm not sure how many hours I've watched the show in total, since there are whole seasons I didn't bother with.

Not that it matters, since you completely missed my point anyway.

 

[Zelig]

what even is productive? for me, "productive" is what makes money or helps in making money. watching educational YouTube vids does not make me money, and the skills or knowledge learned seldom will help with anything. I hate the whole thought behind productive/leisure time and think it's truly one of the dumbest dichotomies of the modern world.

Yes, it's not an especially useful distinction. You can justify a ton of non-productive activities (e.g. sleeping) based on ancillary benefits.

It makes more sense to be critical of activities that deliberately manipulate consumers' feelings without proportional benefit. (some drugs, reality tv, news media, fast/processed food, advertisements, etc.)

 

[yung.carl.jung]

Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.
Yes.

But then pretty much everything I do in my life is being productive What would be some unproductive activities in your opinion? I find it interesting how we view the word completely differently, for me productivity was always in a way connected to financial or social gain. I guess that explains why I am so critical of the concept.

 

[Narz]

Calling it the best aspect of the modern internet is an insult to wikipedia, podcasts, long-form written content, etc.

Plenty of podcasts are available there

The downside is no barrier to entry which means there's a lot of crap but that's all the plusside. Anyone with good content and dedication can be famous. No more hoping to be discovered.

 

[Narz]

You actually pay for no ads? There are free ad-blockers that do that.

Mostly I pay to watch off wifi, and listen with the screen off.

I know there are plenty of youtube download sites but that's time consuming and doesn't support the artist so I just pay the 33cents a day mostly for convenience