Do you make productive use of idle time?

[Gori the Grey]

what even is productive? for me, "productive" is what makes money or helps in making money.

Well, my OP did give a list of possibilities, and only one of them was connected to making money, so, no, that wasn't my definition when I asked the question.

 

[Zelig]

Plenty of podcasts are available there

I'm not saying the content is bad, I'm saying the platform is bad for consumers. Any podcast-specific platform stomps all over youtube for the user.

I know there are plenty of youtube download sites but that's time consuming

Learning how to use youtube-dl is a one-time investment of time to forever increase the usability and efficiency of youtube by like an order of magnitude. The more you use youtube, the faster the breakeven is.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

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.

You do realize that there are varying degrees of being productive within all those questions you asked, right?

For instance, I find listening to music (the kind I like) to be productive, because it relaxes me and contributes to my mental (and physical) well-being. Listening to most of the stuff in the music video thread would be unproductive for me, because to me it's just noise that hurts my ears and grates on my nerves.

 

[cardgame]

Do you drive, Valka?

Your subconscious can drive as long as you're still looking at the road, and there's only light traffic.

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

I have seen "app contains ads" on every "ad-block" service I have seen. :eyeroll:

 

[Valka D'Ur]

Do you drive, Valka?

Your subconscious can drive as long as you're still looking at the road, and there's only light traffic.

No, I don't drive. I never have. And I wouldn't feel safe riding with anyone who was only using their subconscious to do the driving.

 

[cardgame]

I suppose it's not easy to explain. But you don't need to be hyper-aware on an empty road. In fact I'd say it is literally impossible to maintain such an awareness for an extended period of time. The mind wanders. You find yourself miles down the road without too much memory of getting there. Seeing motion (cars pulling onto the road, turn signals) will snap my brain back to high-awareness instantly, so it's not like I'm paying attention to something other than the road.

The point is that your mind will wander off on its own unless it's needed. And in light traffic, it isn't.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I suppose it's not easy to explain. But you don't need to be hyper-aware on an empty road. In fact I'd say it is literally impossible to maintain such an awareness for an extended period of time. The mind wanders. You find yourself miles down the road without too much memory of getting there. Seeing motion (cars pulling onto the road, turn signals) will snap my brain back to high-awareness instantly, so it's not like I'm paying attention to something other than the road.

The point is that your mind will wander off on its own unless it's needed. And in light traffic, it isn't.

Must be nice.

I have mobility issues, and outside the apartment I use a wheeled walker, and bring my canes along in case they're needed to help get myself up again if I fall.

I don't dare let my attention wander, because the slightest unexpected dip or crack in the sidewalk or pavement can trip me up and I could fall.

I'm not constantly watching vehicles, but I am constantly watching the ground.

 

[rah]

I'd like to think all my "free time" is really "work time" with me not paying attention. I like to pose myself a problem and then stop trying to think about it. Whether I focus on it or not doesn't matter. At some point in the future, the solution will present itself to me. The fact that I can enjoy life waiting for it to happen is a great bonus. i do wonder when I retire, what problems I will commit to solving then. Probably inane thing about fixing stuff around the house.

 

[Lexicus]

I post on CFC, of course I don't make productive use of idle time.

 

[GoodEnoughForMe]

I've gotten better over the last several years. I still daydream - I have to, I think everyone does - and I still take some occasional time to laze around, but I am much better about making checklists of things to get done, or plotting out afternoon errands, or actually doing housework, etc. My car ends up being a place I often plot out weekend work like; I have to go to grocery store, gas station, get propane, mow the yard, etc., etc. It's kind of exhausting and has pros and cons. I miss video games and music a lot these days since I have way less time. But I also appreciate coming home to a bedroom that's clean and being able to walk on the floor. And I appreciate actually realizing there's stuff I should do, and, unlike the past, actually doing it.

 

[MaryKB]

I'm terrible at making my idle time productive, at all. When I'm not doing work or basic house chores, I'm usually just reading or playing on my computer, or lately I'm posting on a message board. I don't really learn new skills or do anything really useful like something creative, and now I'm feeling just a smidgen bad about that lol.

 

[Synobun]

I'm terrible at making my idle time productive, at all. When I'm not doing work or basic house chores, I'm usually just reading or playing on my computer, or lately I'm posting on a message board. I don't really learn new skills or do anything really useful like something creative, and now I'm feeling just a smidgen bad about that lol.

I have a friend who is always "go, go, go" about everything. Always making lists, always doing chores, always doing something productive. I don't get it. It seems fundamentally at odds with who I am as a person. I try and complete necessities as quickly as possible, and if I feel overwhelmed by the number of necessities there are, I try to cut out as many as I can. A lot of the things people "need" to do are things that I opt out of wherever and whenever possible.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

I'm terrible at making my idle time productive, at all. When I'm not doing work or basic house chores, I'm usually just reading or playing on my computer, or lately I'm posting on a message board. I don't really learn new skills or do anything really useful like something creative, and now I'm feeling just a smidgen bad about that lol.

If you've ever been interested in writing, some of us hang out in Arts & Entertainment here. And there's a Star Trek thread there...

 

[BenitoChavez]

The goal of my productive time is to figure out how to get more unproductive time. I'd rather sleep in, play video games, and bike outside than work

 

[Lexicus]

I hate the whole thought behind productive/leisure time and think it's truly one of the dumbest dichotomies of the modern world.

The existence of leisure time is actually one of the greatest advances in the whole history of civilization. I mean, think of it, the species went from having almost the whole day be "leisure time" (only a few hours per day of "labor" required to get enough food to eat), then went into a situation where for thousands of years the vast majority of the population had no leisure time at all, in fact their time belonged to elites, not even to themselves, and then finally only a few hundred years ago we began to see the tiniest shoots of leisure time which very quickly led to this:

Which then led into the contemporary era of consumerism where the implicit purpose of all our vast productive enterprise is to let me and you play video games or do yoga or whatever else we want.

 

[Gori the Grey]

The existence of leisure time is actually one of the greatest advances in the whole history of civilization.

Although I once read a thing about how needing it at all is a price of, precisely, civilization: that tribes similar to pre-civ hunter-gatherers spend about two hours a day at anything that can be called work. Sorry, can't remember the reference, so can't vouch for it's validity.

 

[Lexicus]

Although I once read a thing about how needing it at all is a price of, precisely, civilization: that tribes similar to pre-civ hunter-gatherers spend about two hours a day at anything that can be called work. Sorry, can't remember the reference, so can't vouch for it's validity.

Well, yeah. That's why I carefully limited the scope of what I was talking about to "the whole history of civilization"
As far as I'm concerned whether this was a good thing or not is still up for debate, though I will say I don't see how it would be possible to play Civilization if we'd stayed hunter-gatherers, and I like playing Civilization.

 

[Ryika]

Well let's be honest, the average worker might spend 8 hours at work, but also does about two hours a day at anything that can be called work.

That graphic is still BS. When I have an 8 hour workday, that's actually more like 10 hours spent on work, moving to work, getting ready to work, etc.

In either case, I take an 8 hour workday over having a life expectancy of 35 years. Although, much of that number comes from child mortality, so now that I've already survived that... maybe it's time for a bit less society.

 

[Gori the Grey]

As far as I'm concerned whether this was a good thing or not is still up for debate, though I will say I don't see how it would be possible to play Civilization if we'd stayed hunter-gatherers, and I like playing Civilization.

I actually spend a minute after I first roll a game imagining the h-g stage of my peoples in the terrain where I'm about to plop a city.

 

[Hrothbern]

Although I once read a thing about how needing it at all is a price of, precisely, civilization: that tribes similar to pre-civ hunter-gatherers spend about two hours a day at anything that can be called work. Sorry, can't remember the reference, so can't vouch for it's validity.

IDK

That there are currently still hunter-gatherer tribes finding enough food while foraging in not that much time...
how much does that say about the time this was the only way to get food for all of "us", when we were all hunter gatherers ?
I guess it was much more than 2 hours for the not so lucky.


Purely by reasoning:

If there is an abundancy in food, in an constant climate, a species will normally grow in population until growth stops from A. lack of food, B. the growth of amount of predators, C. the infighting in the species for the food (areas).
We, Homo Sapiens, are end-animals, so B. (predators) is out of the equation.

Considering that there are spots with higher food density for hunter gatherers, the sweet spots.
Considering we are socially an extended family animal, inhibiting infighting for the sweet spots between closer family members
I think every new sweet spot populated by immigration is a "paradise" until the high food availability is balanced by a high population from growth.
The social-cultural decision of such a tribe is when to expell excess people.
In effect a decision between "how much time to gather how much food" on the one hand, and at which prosperity level does the tribe start to expell people... and/or starts making war on tribes in adjacent sweet spots around them.
Directly: the whole tribe makes war. Or indirectly: only the expelled people make war.
As a side consideration: a higher level of social skills optimises utilisation of the sweet spot, and becomes favorable as evolutionary change driver.

In so far as this reasoning is correct it can lead to these conclusions:
A lower time of foraging for a tribe, at adequate prosperity, is directly inversely coupled to a higher appetite for expelling less close family members & war with far less close family members.
And the social necessities for this behaviour coded by evolution in our social genes and part of our social traditions and culture.
"Paradise" the short duration period, where we do not need to apply this social expelling.
"Paradise" in potential happening every time for some period of time when new techs and civs allow for a higher population density in a given area at an adequate level of prosperity at low foraging time.

We can only break out of this mechanism when we have a culture that allows everyone a "paradise" and is strong enough to handle our genes, especially regarding what we consider as close family members.