You can measure my productivity by how slouched I am.
Sitting up straight at my desk, chair locked, perfect posture? I’m doing nothing, maybe looking through System Preferences to change the system highlight color.
Sliding down in my chair like jelly, with my shoulders where my butt should be and my head resting on the lumbar support? I’m building the next iPhone and it’ll be done by 2 AM.
Funny, I’m the same. I also like taking walks to think but I’ve found that I must have my head pointing almost directly down (I.e. looking at my feet). It’s also how I stand thinking in the shower, with the warm water hitting my angled neck. Maybe something beneficial about that position of the neck, or maybe just habit!
I will also have conversations in my head during my walk, I’ve done this my whole life and I’m not sure to this day whether my lips move during these or not. In any case, I must get some funny looks with head bolted to the ground mumbling to myself…
As for the software. I would not want a camera on 24/7 (on any device, a compromise being my doorbell, which isn't cloud connected). It'd defeat the small LED which informs you it is on (since it is always-on), and if the machine is compromised this is a method to receive personal data.
Actually, I'd prefer a hardware killswitch on things like camera and microphone.
Alas, I'm not alone in meditating and thinking while taking a shower.
It's one of the moments of my day when I recollect what happened, what I need to do, and what not to do.
The problem is that I can get quite lost during this phase, and hot water isn't cheap, so my SO is always threatening to put a big timer in the bathroom.
My pet hypothesis about why shower is often praised to be such a mindful place is that it has not so much to do with water and more to do with the fact that for many people life alternates between 1) constant social interaction and interruptions from other people and 2) bathroom time.
How many people these days have a dedicated home office, off limits to anyone else? How many partners sleep in different rooms?
Sure, perhaps the sensory experience plays some role, but if your bathroom is reliably the most interruption-free place for you, naturally you’d form a habit of catching up on all the “slow thinking”, most negatively impacted by interruptions, during shower.
I’ve seen people with interruption-free solo hobbies (be that hiking in the woods, motorcycling, rock climbing, etc.) describing similarly mindful experiences, but unlike those shower is the lowest common denominator and perhaps one that happens most routinely.
In my case, though walks help declutter my mind somewhat, for deeper thoughts, I have to write it down sitting or laying in the bed in the worst of positions. Thinking too deeply while walking only leaves me anxious in the end as I tend to get sidetracked a lot in conversation and always have to restart the conversation over and over again.
I tried doing the same. Sometimes it made my understanding of things much clearer. However most fimes, I found it worked best when I had a clear idea on paper, either to validate the idea or when I needed to an opinion. Otherwise, ChatGPT in my case, built upon my idea that I hadn't thought through well and confuse the shit out of me.
This is how things get built for me as well. I have a standing desk and like using it occasionally but if you see me standing at it you can bet I'm doing something typical like emails or chat and not thinking deeply.
If you delete social media, and leave your phone away from your person all day with notifications turned off, you can have these moments all the time it turns out.
Considering how much more productive these moments are for me than the bullshit I used to do on my phone and social media, it was an easy decision to make.
Oh, lol, now I get your question. Yea, it turns out the silence and lack of distractions are what produce "shower thoughts", more so than the act of showering itself.
Doing any relatively rote act like washing dishes, walking places, etc can also give rise to them. Not having a device in your hand to constantly steal your attention really helps though.
Showers are generally considered to be relaxing separately from the “shower thoughts” phenomenon.
Couldn’t the relaxation be a factor in generating shower thoughts?
I suspect that essentially none of our non-ancestors were predated in a hot spring, unlike walking etc, so there may be an environmental cue driven induced relaxation that doesn’t exist for many other activities.
Yea, you relax, and then your brain produces random thoughts about things.
I suspect it's just about getting the space to relax, which is why I frequently have thoughts when staring at the wall, or taking a walk, or washing dishes, or doing any other myriad activities which are relatively easy on brain processing.
I find pacing to be helpful. As long as there’s not a lot of poles to walk into accidentally. So while outside walks can be more focused you do get the odd head bang.
I never understood this. Is this why the cubicles are always full in the office? WTF I go in there take a dump and leave while the people on each side are just silent the whole time. I can think of much better places to think.
This is interesting, because in many ways I’m almost the exact opposite.
If I’m slouched in my chair, then I’m either completely disengaged or doing something mundane like dealing with email. If I’m upright or sat forward then I’m engaged and executing, but maybe not thinking deeply - I’m doing something I’ve already thought about and decided on. And if I’m on my feet and moving around, often doing some mundane chore like emptying the dishwasher, then I’m likely thinking.
It’s actually a really good illustration of why one size fits all solutions when it comes to work environment and conditions are often so unsatisfactory.
Exactly what I came here to say. I've been programming for 40 years, 35 professionally, and I didn't find my ergonomic, no-pain, no-RSI happy place until I stopped following advice to sit up straight. I set my chair with just enough resistance, set the head rest where it puts my eyeline directly on my monitors, which are set considerably higher than average and about a metre from my head. I can work for hours like this now, with no pain.
I could never use an app like this. Maybe I should write one that blurs the screen when I don't slouch.
it will be interesting to see as these tools emerge to what extent the undercontrolled behavior is a piece of a larger cycle of attention and context mgmt, or if all of that time can be nudged back into the zone
In a previous tech bubble I figured out that the Aeron chairs were great - if you were using good posture. Slouch at all and they'd hurt you. The humanscale chair was the one that was actually good for feet-on-desk, keyboard-in-lap, staring out the window while rotating data structures in my head...
Sitting up straight at my desk, chair locked, perfect posture? I’m doing nothing, maybe looking through System Preferences to change the system highlight color.
Sliding down in my chair like jelly, with my shoulders where my butt should be and my head resting on the lumbar support? I’m building the next iPhone and it’ll be done by 2 AM.