

Why Idling Mind is Mother of Invention - anupj
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/st_thompson/

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adg
What exactly is 'day dreaming'? The author seems to make up his own definition
for it, interpreting it to include activities such as reading Wikipedia and
watching YouTube videos. Personally, I find many of the tasks he mentioned too
interactive to allow my mind to wander while doing them. (I'm actually trying
to _learn_ something when I read a Wikipedia article.) I think I'll stick to
three-hour walks.

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csallen
_How about designing software that optimizes daydreaming?_

My work cycle involves writing code, checking email, and doing research
online. Rarely does my mind wonder to other things when I'm coding. I figure
this is a result of at least two factors: (1) Coding is more mentally engaging
than email and research. (2) My IDE doesn't have any interesting links. The
only things I can click on to distract me from a programming task are files
containing other programming tasks.

Anyone have a lot of free time on their hands? I'd like to place an order for
a Firefox add-on that takes banner ads and gratuitous "related article" links,
and replaces them with excerpts from my coding to-do list that link back to
Eclipse...

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Alex3917
Dude, it's like when you think you're thinking, what you're actually doing is
thinking. Woah.

~~~
noelchurchill
Or isn't it like when you think you're _not_ thinking, then you're actually
still thinking? Or either way?!

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RevRal
Okay, try getting through Shakespeare without the discipline of being an
active reader and you'll get nothing out of it but boredom. Listen to jazz and
classical without actively listening, and you'll mistake the music as being
relaxing.

An activity is engaging when you are a participant; that's the difference
between reading Twilight and 100 Years of Solitude. If you want to accomplish
something to its fullest effect, you cant do it passively, as this article
seems to suggest is okay.

Did I miss something?

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inglorian
"How about designing software that optimizes daydreaming? For example, one
problem with drifting is that we’re often unaware we’re doing it. We can hit
upon a cool idea but never even realize it. Imagine an app that randomly pings
you to see if your mind is wandering — and if it is, lets you record what
you’re thinking about."

Wow. That sounds insanely annoying. This suggests that, since we don't realize
when we've hit upon a cool idea, we should just write down everything we're
daydreaming about. Imagine having to read through all of that junk just to
potentially find something good you might have thought of.

I suspect that the premise is wrong - we're probably not all constantly having
genius ideas that we don't recognize in between daydreaming about dinner and
youtube videos. If an idea comes up while I am daydreaming that is useful and
relevant, I almost always realize it, even though I may not always write it
down. Cultivating the habit of writing these ideas down is useful and
necessary, but I don't see how a constantly-pinging app would help with that.

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dnewcome
Sometimes your mind comes up with solutions to problems you don't know that
you have yet, so the thought may not seem particularly relevant at the time.
Later on, that information is sometimes hard to reconstruct intentionally.
Sometimes what I do is to go back and repeat whatever it was that I was doing
when I had the thought to see if I can re-trigger it. I'd love to have
something that I could use to manually re-trigger a train of thought somehow.
Something like that could allow you to follow convoluted branches of thought
more easily also.

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modelic3
I guess those kids with ADD were not problem kids after all.

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ilkhd
In my cause it is Mother of Falling Asleep.

