There’s also the totally free option of streaming your workday live, on Twitch or whatever. Even if nobody is watching, just knowing there’s a chance that somebody might be watching is often enough to make me a lot more productive and focused. And you will get a random chatter stopping by once in awhile for real.
This has the added benefit of encouraging you to talk out loud through your problems, which can also get you some Rubber Duck Debugging benefits (asking somebody else for help requires explaining your problem in a way where you solve it yourself.) You do open yourself up to chatters becoming a whole new source of distraction, of course.
I expect most people have employers that would strongly object to them streaming their entire workday? Even if you don’t work on anything especially sensitive, things phrased for an internal context will not generally be suitable for being fully public.
The kind of employers that would not be okay with you streaming your work on Twitch are usually also the kind of employers that would not be okay with you hiring randos to sit behind you staring at confidential info on your screen during the work day.
This is really only suitable for people who are entrepreneurs/small business owners with less concerns over confidentiality, or have enough rapport with their employer for them to be ok with this.
Relevant side note: I have found you can rubber duck debug excellently with chatGPT. Helped me structure my thoughts, explicate them, and figure out new ideas. And unlike a literal rubber duck, it reflects back what it understands, and hence highlights potential misunderstandings. And if you are completely stuck, you can ask it for a random idea, which, while often not good, gets you something to work on as you explain why no, that is bad.
They have also now changed Bing so it can ask questions back, which is neat for this, though the restricted conversation turns limit utility.
I have considered doing this for similar reasons, but the logistics of managing API keys, passwords, and other sensitive forms of information have always made me reluctant to pull the trigger. Have you found a workflow that lets you maintain a reasonable amount of opsec?
Haven’t found a great solution. When you stream you typically designate specific apps, and everything else is invisible. So for example I try use FireFox for anything public, and Chrome for everything private. I’ve only done it a few times myself, I’ll try and pay attention the next time I see other people’s streams.
There’s also the totally free option of streaming your workday live, on Twitch or whatever. Even if nobody is watching, just knowing there’s a chance that somebody might be watching is often enough to make me a lot more productive and focused. And you will get a random chatter stopping by once in awhile for real.
This has the added benefit of encouraging you to talk out loud through your problems, which can also get you some Rubber Duck Debugging benefits (asking somebody else for help requires explaining your problem in a way where you solve it yourself.) You do open yourself up to chatters becoming a whole new source of distraction, of course.
I expect most people have employers that would strongly object to them streaming their entire workday? Even if you don’t work on anything especially sensitive, things phrased for an internal context will not generally be suitable for being fully public.
The kind of employers that would not be okay with you streaming your work on Twitch are usually also the kind of employers that would not be okay with you hiring randos to sit behind you staring at confidential info on your screen during the work day.
This is really only suitable for people who are entrepreneurs/small business owners with less concerns over confidentiality, or have enough rapport with their employer for them to be ok with this.
Relevant side note: I have found you can rubber duck debug excellently with chatGPT. Helped me structure my thoughts, explicate them, and figure out new ideas. And unlike a literal rubber duck, it reflects back what it understands, and hence highlights potential misunderstandings. And if you are completely stuck, you can ask it for a random idea, which, while often not good, gets you something to work on as you explain why no, that is bad.
They have also now changed Bing so it can ask questions back, which is neat for this, though the restricted conversation turns limit utility.
I have considered doing this for similar reasons, but the logistics of managing API keys, passwords, and other sensitive forms of information have always made me reluctant to pull the trigger. Have you found a workflow that lets you maintain a reasonable amount of opsec?
Haven’t found a great solution. When you stream you typically designate specific apps, and everything else is invisible. So for example I try use FireFox for anything public, and Chrome for everything private. I’ve only done it a few times myself, I’ll try and pay attention the next time I see other people’s streams.