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 42 points 1 month ago (3 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 17 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month 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 2 points 1 month ago

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

[–] Agrivar@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I've probably listened to the entire MCU, in order, fifteen times over the past two years. I can ignore it and happily work or game, while it calms the tiny part of my brain that's registering it - and then I'll notice an especially good scene is coming up, so I pause whatever's currently on top and switch to the video for a scene or two... then back to work/play.

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 month ago

Fully Ramblomatic (previously known as Zero Punctuation) videos do this for me

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 month ago

It took me four days to get through Ash (2019)

Amazing movie

I stayed up until 4AM each day

[–] MeatsOfRage@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

I've really gotten into those police interrogation videos on YouTube. The ones that are like 3 hours of raw footage of the interrogation. You can miss large chunks because it's such a long process and just tune in when they run out of lies and confess.