this post was submitted on 14 Sep 2025
44 points (95.8% liked)

No Stupid Questions

43426 readers
781 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)


Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.



Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.



Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.



Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.



Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.



Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.



Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.



Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.



Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.



Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.



Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

my future job involves taking labor samples from point a to point b in a huge university campus involving several buildings and there is a ton of downtime: I often see my future coworkers playing on their phones, buying coffee several times a day, talking or smoking out of boredom.

There are moments when every laboratory wants you at once but even then they take it easy and a person cannot be at two places at the same time.

I don't know if it's really going to be this relaxed but it really looks so.

I was thinking loading my smartphone with books, find a quiet place and read, learn something.

Instead of smoking I could stretch and do some easy pilates and yoga.

there's always going several times to the toilet to have a seat and relax with nobody pestering you.

I don't reckon I could study something for college, write a book or poetry or learn a foreign language, as I couldn't concentrate.

what do you do in your downtime when you're lucky enough not to have a supervisor micromanaging you?

top 32 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

I’m a fan of audiobooks, but it’s the same basic concept. I host an Audiobookshelf instance, so I always have something fresh to listen to if I finish my current book.

It’s nice because you can listen while doing menial tasks. It keeps you entertained, even while being productive. As long as you don’t actually need to interact with anyone, you’re fine.

[–] MantisToboggon@lazysoci.al 3 points 3 hours ago

How many times a day are you capable of beating off?

[–] Zedd_Prophecy@lemmy.world 7 points 5 hours ago

Gutenberg.org and go to browse / random Do mundane things like make shopping lists... Look up recipes to cook for the weekend. Get a note taking app and organize lists of things you need to get to or want to get to. I use Google keep but there are a bunch. Research things you always wanted to.

[–] SaneMartigan@aussie.zone 5 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

yeah, eBooks. I keep a few on my phone and just work my way through them during downtime. I use the ReadEra app on Android, and mostly read copyright free classics at the moment.

[–] SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works 24 points 8 hours ago

Reading is always good, and waay better than scrolling. Audiobooks/podcasts are also cool and if you can't fully commit yourself to writing maybe just jot down an outline to flesh out later

[–] cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 11 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Learn to program. Worked fantastic for me and my career. Shout out to the people paid fat checks who don’t give a fuck what their employees are doing.

[–] 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 6 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Learn to program.

you probably missed this part:

I don’t reckon I could study something for college, write a book or poetry or learn a foreign language, as I couldn’t concentrate.

[–] cabron_offsets@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

That’s fair. Oh well.

[–] shinysquirrel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 6 hours ago

I was going to suggest reading but you already said it yourself. So just go with that. I think it's one of the best uses of free time a human has.

[–] Beebabe@lemmy.world 12 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Sometimes I play sudoku rather than doomscrolling.

[–] Suck_on_my_Presence@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago

I play different kinds of solitaire instead of doomscrolling

[–] pet1t@lemmy.world 7 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

buy an emulator (miyoo mini plus, if I could suggest one) and have fun!

[–] ethaver@kbin.earth 4 points 7 hours ago

got hubs one because I couldn't afford a steam deck for his birthday. he loves it. I never see him play it at home (I think because the actual computer is here) but every once in a while he'll mention having played x or y retro game and he has covered the ENTIRE thing in Simpsons stickers.

[–] ethaver@kbin.earth 4 points 7 hours ago

so you can study stuff and do coursework but you gotta make it really easy to do accidentally. when I got a paper to write I would make a google drive folder with the project outline and a template for the paper including a reference sheet. I would lazily look up sources occasionally and add the pdfs to the folder and easybib / citation machine them into the reference section by doi. at that point it would be a matter of when the paper would get written, not if. the dopamine would just hit suddenly when I'm having an IBS shit at 2am and "oops. I wrote a research paper." I accidentally wrote so many papers while shitting. one time I set all of it up and went to bed and turned out one of the group members was also ADHD because when I woke up she'd accidentally done the whole thing while I was asleep. 10/10 method.

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

Chess on your phone. That's what I do. Podcasts or audio books while on the move

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Lichess is the best out there, and it is completely free.

[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 1 points 5 hours ago

I use both lichess and chess.com

[–] hydrashok@sh.itjust.works 3 points 7 hours ago

Buy a Steam Deck and get into Skyrim or something?

[–] glibg@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 hours ago

You could look up paper airplane designs and try making some.

[–] slazer2au@lemmy.world 3 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I read an ebook. Mostly fantasy but I am reading some cosmic horror at the moment.

[–] lolrightythen@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago

I've been through all of Brandon sanderson several times on my night shifts. Stormlight archive and mistborn eat up a lot of time without it being noticeable.

[–] TheFunkyMonk@lemmy.world 2 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

I can’t recommend getting an e-reader more. It’s so much nicer than staring at a backlit screen for extended periods of time.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago (3 children)

Are they all alike, I mean can I go for a cheap one or what do you recommend?

[–] Coopr8@kbin.earth 1 points 5 minutes ago

Boox is best because it runs full android, dont lock yourself in to Amazon. Some folks prefer Supernote if writing us your focus, but if reading is your jam get Boox as you can read any format, download off of any site or app, sideboard and run f-droid, read the web, even use the fediverse. The screens are as good as you can get, and the software stays updated.

[–] lunarul@lemmy.world 1 points 2 hours ago

As long as it's got an e-ink screen, it's already an upgrade vs reading on a phone or tablet.

[–] TheFunkyMonk@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago

I have a Kindle and love it, but if you don’t want to go with Amazon, I think Kobos are a solid option! The current best models are the Kindle Colorsoft and the Kobo Libra Colour, but they both have cheaper models as well.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Stare.

Or the ol classic: If you got time to lean, you got time to clean.