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Time spent thinking without distractions, or playing with a ball, sure. Time spent with "leisure Internet browsing," though? Not so much. Brainwaves slow down

Time spent thinking without distractions, or playing with a ball, sure. Time spent with "leisure Internet browsing," though? Not so much. Brainwaves slow down when watching TV compared to just sitting staring at the grass. Lolling around Gawker and Reddit isn't so different from watching TV for a lot of people.

petercooper 16y ago
Time spent with "leisure Internet browsing," though? Not so much. It's not for everyone, but for me, "leisure Internet browsing" (and leisure creation) over the past 15 years has been step 1 of most of my successes. If I'd been focused on my "work" more, I probably wouldn't have started blogging in 1999 or even known what it was. Blogging has brought me a book deal, a large share of my income, and many other things since then. I probably wouldn't have come across Rails in 2004 and had some early successes there. I wouldn't have been tuned into the great stuff discussed on HN about e-mail newsletters, which I've now turned into a success for myself too. The list is endless. I try not to spend too long just noodling around the Internet, but I do quite a bit of it because I can see what an investment it is. By keeping an eye on what people are into, what other people are making, and what memes are catching on, I can absorb those ideas and produce catchier things of my own. It saddens me when I meet smart people at meetups who don't spend enough time casually browsing and who have no idea what's "going on" at the moment or what opportunities there are opening up.. Again, this might only be beneficial because I work entirely for myself. If I were working a 9 to 5 in an office, it probably wouldn't make sense.
- Mikushi 16y ago
  I work 10 to 6 in an office, and i do the same, wandering on Hacker News, /r/programming or /r/gamedev, arstechnica, Twitter, to too much but just enough. I find that trying to hard to concentrate just leads to bad stuff, so whenever i can't concentrate or get a grasp on a problem, i just go "meh whatever, what's new on Hacker News?", read one article or two, get back to whatever i was doing. I'm a problem solver, i'm recognized to be one, and i don't know much people who have a problem with me wandering on the internet here and there. And if it's not internet, i take a quick smoke break, helps most of the time, specially in the winter when it's -20 outside (Montreal, gotta love it :p ), slap you right in the face.

petercooper 16y ago

Time spent with "leisure Internet browsing," though? Not so much. It's not for everyone, but for me, "leisure Internet browsing" (and leisure creation) over the past 15 years has been step 1 of most of my successes. If I'd been focused on my "work" more, I probably wouldn't have started blogging in 1999 or even known what it was. Blogging has brought me a book deal, a large share of my income, and many other things since then. I probably wouldn't have come across Rails in 2004 and had some early successes there. I wouldn't have been tuned into the great stuff discussed on HN about e-mail newsletters, which I've now turned into a success for myself too. The list is endless. I try not to spend too long just noodling around the Internet, but I do quite a bit of it because I can see what an investment it is. By keeping an eye on what people are into, what other people are making, and what memes are catching on, I can absorb those ideas and produce catchier things of my own. It saddens me when I meet smart people at meetups who don't spend enough time casually browsing and who have no idea what's "going on" at the moment or what opportunities there are opening up.. Again, this might only be beneficial because I work entirely for myself. If I were working a 9 to 5 in an office, it probably wouldn't make sense.

Mikushi 16y ago
I work 10 to 6 in an office, and i do the same, wandering on Hacker News, /r/programming or /r/gamedev, arstechnica, Twitter, to too much but just enough. I find that trying to hard to concentrate just leads to bad stuff, so whenever i can't concentrate or get a grasp on a problem, i just go "meh whatever, what's new on Hacker News?", read one article or two, get back to whatever i was doing. I'm a problem solver, i'm recognized to be one, and i don't know much people who have a problem with me wandering on the internet here and there. And if it's not internet, i take a quick smoke break, helps most of the time, specially in the winter when it's -20 outside (Montreal, gotta love it :p ), slap you right in the face.