I will be watching a three hour video essay, get distracted, read posts on Lemmy, then go back to my video 15 minutes later. I realize I have no idea what was said in the last 15 minutes so I have to back up to the last point I definitely know I wasn't distracted. It will take me ten hours to watch that video.

[–] snooggums@midwest.social 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

This is why I don't do podcasts in the background, I miss stuff and the whole thing becomes a confusing distraction.

What seems to work for me is something I have seen/heard a bunch of times in the background (Futurama, electronic music) which scratches that mind wandering itch without it dragging me away from what I want to be doing.

[–] littlewonder@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I have two types of podcasts: those I listen to when doing work that is pretty mindless so I can focus on the podcast, and those that are entertaining but not important enough that it matters if I miss something while reading directions or thinking through next steps on my project, etc.

Come to think of it, I have one other category, actually, which are podcasts that are interesting but get a big backlog because I'm not that excited about them. I use those to fall asleep.

[–] nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 2 months ago

For me it’s similar, but podcasts for housework and cleaning, music for working, silence for drawing/problem solving.