Ask HN: Do you do something else while you work? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Do you do something else while you work?

14 pointsPooge13 comments

I'm talking about listening to music, listening to a podcast, or hell even watching a series or livestream.

I mostly listen to music and "watch" livestreams but the former is very repetitive.

So I'm wondering about what you guys do, if anything at all? Looking to make the most out of dull times.

Old School Runescape. I know it sounds impossible to play a game while working. However, a huge part of this game is click and wait between 10 seconds to 10 minutes. I get a ding in my headset when I need to click again. It requires just enough attention that I need to be active at my computer but after that click I have nothing better to do than work.

I work from home, and I've been tempted to do this. However, for me, I'd rather just get the job done in fewer hours with my full focus, and then do chores, etc, in my other hours.

This but tavern sitting in good old MUDs.

I listen to music when what I'm doing allows for it. And sometimes I'll watch a Youtube video. But it's usually something that's at least tangentially work related. I don't really just sit around and like, watch cat videos at work, or whatever.

And, of course, checking HN obsessively. :-)

I work remotely and wrap up a lot of my mindless chores during the day. I fold laundry during morning team huddles. If I'm needed on a call to listen in or only to offer occasional opinions then I will load the dishwasher, clean out the fridge etc while on the call. It's not exactly exciting, but those things have to be done and it requires no real attention or brainpower, which means I can remain focused on important job items.

I work remotely, but even when they had me coming into an office, I'd go for walks with my girl at the time, who I worked with, and then I'd come back, and there'd be moments where nothing was going on, so I'd work on my own side projects and still do it to this day.

You could say I definitely have an undiagnosed ADHD or Autism and I need to be doing something aside from the thing I'm doing. Don't get me wrong.. if work requires me to focus on it, I'll work on it to completion.

I am disassembling electronic circuit boards and make logics for cardboard birds out of them.

I listen to Soma.fm -- changing stations every hour or so. At lunch or when taking a break, I scan the news or read a longer article. Sometimes, I spend 10 minutes fiddling with ChatGPT just for the hell of it.

In the office? No, I had too many drive-bys to pay attention to non-work material. The only exceptions to that rule have been 9/11 and historic rocket launches (and landings!).

At home? All the time. Music, NPR, YouTube.

Work remotely with micromanagement and inflexible time is "worse experience" than in-office.

You're stressful by alert, notification, taggings, meeting,... and a bunch of other artifical things.

I steal stationary from the stationary cupboard, print loads of journal articles from someone else’s printer login and then read them for uni. I can usually get through 2 or 3 articles a day.

Back when I was in IT, I'd basically be waiting for things to break... I'd spend a lot of time reading HN, /., MetaFilter, etc.

How I got to that point.... when I started, things broke often enough that I had a 40 hour work week... as time went by, I got everything running smoothly, and had less, and less to do as the years went by.

I tried to do upgrades to their production database, Smiley... 3 different times, with the 3rd attempt even having provisions for running the new and old versions at the same time... but they just wouldn't bite.... so I gave up after that... just waited for things to break.

I never work without music

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