The consequences of messing up a make believe factory is essentially nothing except one’s own time loss. The consequences of messing up a real factory are obvio

The consequences of messing up a make believe factory is essentially nothing except one’s own time loss. The consequences of messing up a real factory are obviously substantial. What games or side projects let us do sometimes is to explore and enter a more diffuse mode of thought which has some tangential benefits to other activities. Spending too much time “being productive” can be counterproductive because one can get tunnel vision too busy executing tasks instead of reimagining or optimizing those tasks. Too much time questioning the work and nothing materially important gets done either.