alt Hacker NewsDoes this approach work for anyone? For my life, I've found that if I'm not behind the computer then I'm not in a productive situation anyway, even with AI access. I don't have a setting where I can concentrate for a long time and think clearly. For examole when watching children, doing groceries, during transit (probably have to change train in 20m, or walking to next destination). No convenient access to a notepad and pen. On a phone it's also inconvenient to do research.
For me personally I've found two better uses of in-between time:
1. Micro exercises. Really important for health and longevity, especially when it's hard to find dedicated time for exercise.
2. Resting. This means no phone. Yeah hard to resist doom scrolling. Just relaxing muscles and breathing exercises, calming down the nervous system. Increases long term resillience and reduces stress.
So I'm a bit puzzled. If you are in a situation where you can concentrate, why not just pull out a laptop? Typing on phone is really annoying. Even complex conversations with AI I prefer doing on a laptop.
Perhaps there are coding tasks where the prompt is not too complex and it's more about writing code. But you still have to review the result. That's even more annoying on a phone than writing text.
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Yeah, even if I'm on a plane or a train I probably wouldn't pull out my laptop.
Lack of space, vibrations etc. even though I can do a lot of work offline if the internet is spotty. It's just not enjoyable.
I prefer to read or chill out.
I kind of envy people who are like oh yeah I coded the feature on the flight... I can't really get in the zone in that environment.
Saying that, I assumed this post was a joke. ssh to a work machine or a personal machine through a VPN is not new, even if you happen to run claude code in that terminal.
I'm interested in these "micro exercises".
It worked for me for finishing my app (vps+shellfish+gemini-cli), I've done a lot of coding like this on the train and in between sets in the gym, picking up on the more complicated stuff when at home.
But also all of the changes I made from the phone were incremental.
I think the problem you are having is that you are actually thinking clearly and rationally and are not suffering from this incessant brain rot that is the new normal.
I feel similarly. I am happiest and healthiest all round when I focus on the one thing I have chosen to do at any given time rather than figuring out ways to multi-task.
I do however enjoy choosing to do math/coding adjacent activities for leisure or learning sometimes when I'm away from the computer. I've found that it was a net positive in my life to add in puzzles/exercises that I can do with pen and paper in those circumstances.