> informal networks in the company

Not just smokers. The little groups who would go and leave for a walk and coffee. The people who ate lunch together either going out, or together in the kitchen.

These were opportunities to cross the boundaries of your department and role, it was a great excuse to make friends in other groups, and gain insights.

For me the first ones I tried to align with were always in CS and Accounting. The former often had great insight into emerging issues (next weeks "bug", next months "project"). The latter had insight into how the business was really doing, hearing from the people who looked at your "raw" numbers could tell you more than any company meeting where "everything is great".

Working from home killed these, and "zoom" or "slack" are not the same - people are far more guarded when they understand that the company owns that communication channel, that it is recorded/monitored.

I see a lot of concern about whether or not people will tolerate some behavior of mine that isn't harmful to anyone. I'm Gen X, so maybe it's how I grew up, but I just dgaf about whether or not my coworkers are okay with my taking a break and going for a walk. I'm not doing it to be mean to them or anything and I don't do it when I'm in the middle of something big and it's definitely nothing personal (I like my coworkers), it just helps me clear my head which is a win when someone works in a job where they need to keep lots of details in their head and switch contexts a lot.

This attitude does lead to some people being miffed because I wasn't available on Teams for 10 minutes, but anything I can do to push back against the idea of my being available to everyone at any time is a win in my book.

One of my earlier startups, I was a junior/mid level software engineer. I took a skive day to WFH, but was actually travelling to a gig on the train. I sketched out something to pretend I was working that day, and sent him a photo of it. We ended up shipping that design and I only really made one major mistake that we fixed in v2.

It’s amazing how much value there is in idleness.

Rich Hickey, creator of clojure, literally calls this "Hammock driven development" and has a great talk on the matter (multiple actually):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc

(oops, cross-posted with a similar comment.. well, shows the vid is watchworthy)

Rich Hickey gave a great talk on Hammock Driven Development

It’s an option, but it’s worth noting that you’re not always idling your brain in quite the same way unless you happen to work somewhere were there are no roads to cross, cars and cyclists to dodge, nor other pedestrians to navigate around.

I sometimes find toilet breaks or coffee breaks (waiting for kettle to boil) fill the “daydream debugging” requirement. But that depends on having a clean bathroom with enough stalls, or an empty kitchen without other people making drinks.

Working from home definitely helps here. Though significantly less so during the holidays when kids are off.

Edit: just in case there’s any misunderstanding, I’m not suggesting having the kids around is a bad thing. I love my kids. Just that they have an obvious impact to my concentration.

I think they’re saying that you could say “I’m going for a smoke break” at work and it was at least tolerated. I don’t think you can say “I’m going for a walk” the same way.

I have been doing this new practice I heard on some podcast or something - taking a short brisk walk like every thirty minutes. It was promoted for cardiovascular health, trying to compensate for sitting too much, but I also find it is incredibly good at letting me concentrate hard through more hours of work than without. I sometimes check the news or whatever but often just walk and listen to music or chat. I walk strictly five minutes, almost to the end of my block and back, and continue on. The timing ties in with my meditation training, Maezumi lineage, where we sit for 25 minutes then walk (first slowly and then quickly) for five minutes. In meditation it really allows one to sit with energy and focus all day long; also for software development, it turns out.

I also take a longer, 5 km, walk most days, as a way to control type 2 diabetes. This short regular walk is quite different.

Honestly the biggest issue is that the increased focus means I can get into a zone and two hours go by without pause, so every thirty minutes is not always met.

Almost. Nicotine does a lot of work in a short smoke break. Gotta walk for a lot longer to get close.

A cigarette to doing nothing, is like a dog to walking pointlessly.

Consume less, create more: “These are not the only two options. There's a third activity most of us seem to have forgotten - to simply be.

For me, the very act of everyday living has become very enjoyable and fulfilling in recent years. Doing the dishes, cooking, gardening, sweeping the floor, putting out the trash. Those are not "chores", that's what life's made of. Some of it creative, some not, but the difference is you're simply present in the moment and in the world.”

Next time I do the dishes, I will appreciate being alive, and be thankful to be doing something healthy for my brain. Thanks!

It’s not just social media. Most people have their thing… the news, podcasts, music, books, games, etc. In the modern era we can always have something that allows us to distract our brain or provides external ideas to direct it. Being alone with our own thoughts, devoid of outside influence, is something that seems to take an intentional choice these days.

I find that just setting it to grayscale is enough. Its not that colors are actually an important part of my mostly text based social media experience, but when I use them without colors I get distracted with:

> What am I doing? This dumb.

And then I remember that it is dumb and I go back to leaving it alone.

Using your phone in a cinema was, is and ever will be a massive faux pas. I have no idea at all why you think it might be otherwise.

Please never check your phone while the film is playing. Major faux pas.

Respect.

I hope to find the strength to be more like that. Also to give a better example to others.

I notice making the screen go grayscale (can configure volume up+down to do this in android) already makes doom-anything much less long-lived. The next step, since apparently I can't go cold turkey, is to try one of these alternative minimalist launchers to see if it helps. And to teach people that if they want something from me urgently, they need to call.

On the topic of watches, I used a smartwatch the company gifted me for a while. Went back to an analog watch. Much better.

This cracked me up. I have the same malady. The worst thing used to be a few close friends who recognized the pattern after being with me long enough and called me out in it when they knew I was zoning out while they were talking. Ive desperately tried to keep this daydreaming trait lately despite trying to get rid of it when I was younger when I used to think it was a disadvantage.

I'm not sure I have the willpower to follow your example but at least I managed to turn of notifications on my watch after reading your post.

>> What happens if you just sit there doing nothing, looking around and what not? Does your brain start to wander by itself?

For me it's one of the three layers.

First layer, it starts to wonder to the direction offered by real world. Wonder about song lyrics I'm listening too, or the colors of buildings, or something like that.

Second layer happens if you purposefully stray your thoughts away from a real world. Brain starts trying to remember whatever you wanted it to remember. For example, if I tell myself three times "don't forget to call mom", if I just sit idly, chances are my brain would surface "call mom". Sometimes it surfaces "remember you wanted to try arch 2 years ago". Also this is the layer that works badly if you tried or depressed, because it can start surfacing bad thoughts.

Third layer I call time skipper because it's just a basic time fast forwarding. I have no idea whether it's true meditation or controlled dissociation or something else, but thoughts slide of your brain, so there's nothing to remember afterwards. My friend said that maybe meditation is a controlled dissociation.

I prefer to say that I'm so dumb, I can just switch my brain off.

[dead]

I've needed to take anc earbuds with me while out now, not to listen to music but just to tone down the noise pollution a bit. You can barely hear nature anyway over all the cars, trucks, lawnmowers, leafblowers, airplanes, and what I think are warehouses. It's been getting worse in recent years and the only way to have a chance at daydreaming is to lower it a bit.

I find it impossible to daydream while focused on traffic.

I often just wear noise cancelling headphones without any music on

Sadly around here it takes quite a lot of driving to get to anywhere that nature sounds predominate. Between the highways/airports/lawncare it is mostly noise pollution, and I generally find that doesn't work as well for daydreaming.

I found that people would make fun of me for that, too, if they were made aware of it.

Back when I was still stuck to a desk in school (up hill both ways and without a pocket computer), I learned that folks would tend to leave me alone if I had a book open. It didn't really matter what book it was.

I could just gaze at it with my eyes relaxed and unfocused, with the printing appearing as some kind of indistinct phoric blur. And as long as I turned the page occasionally, that was good enough to keep the would-be tyrants at bay.

(And then I'd ace the test on Friday, repeat for dozens of weeks, and do it again next year.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bodhidharma#Wall-gazing

> > How would one daydream, i.e., imagine, when you have everything presented to you in 4k and you can even interact with it through games?

You can daydream about being the protagonist of such actions which is not the same as watching other people doing it

It goes beyond my job but that is my fault for narrowing it down. Even day to day shopping at random stores, I have never seen this gen-z stare or any of the other terms we assign to them. If they are bimodal, which they very well could be, the competent mode is clearly dominant where I have lived

We went through twenty years of millennials being this or that, how none of them work, how they are moochers. Every generation gets called lazy and dumped on by the previous generations; as far as I can tell, it is mostly bull shit. I have yet to experience anything extraordinary about gen-z that I don't see in gen-y, gen-x, latchkey, boomers, greatest generation, etc.

Maybe younger gen-z or gen-alpha like you say are truly messed up, I think we have data coming out of schools that support that, but I have yet to interact with them as I don't have kids myself. Everything I have said is inherently anecdotal and no more important than what you've seen

My phone is already like that. There are still emails, texts, the browser still exists, the weather, etc.

And even ignoring all of that, taking hands off the keyboard/mouse, picking up a different device, waiting for the notification, opening it up, typing in the code, putting the phone back down, moving back to the keyboard/mouse/monitor… it’s very disruptive to any flow I might hope to have.

A coworker tried to use Authy a couple years ago and it wouldn't work. It seemed like we were forced to use Microsoft Authenticator.

I just tried setting it up with Apple Passwords and it wouldn’t accept the QR code. It seems to be specifically made for Microsoft.

KeePassXC also has one.

I would say that if the mind stays away from negative ruminations when set free, that is a sign of a balanced and healthy life. Many people lack balance and health, and for them changing the conditions a bit might be helpful. Knowing and practicing that one can focus the attention where it is useful can increase mental health or ability to cope with problems. One doesn’t want to run away from reality but one need not feel trapped by intrusive mental phenomena.