[delichon]

I once got stoned and watched a washing machine wash a load from start to finish. Utterly fascinating and no way I'd have that focus unaltered. It's not clear whether it was a good use of time though.

[rancour]

I’ve had moments like those back when I used to smoke over a decade ago, but they’ll come to you regardless (they still come to me from time to time). The “utter fascination” is like a direct link to reality, the interconnected perception of sound and motion and abstract shapes and colors and reflections and other things is just fucking bewildering. We are just observers of something spectacular.

[mellutussa]

Personally I think the trick is to find it interesting. If I find something very interesting I can focus on it for hours on end.

Perhaps the stoning material of choice alters what you find very interesting.

[perihelions]

Yeah, but you can translate that into constructive focus on the level of normal high-level tasks such as programming, or reading, or mathematics or music or things of that sort?

[devmor]

For programming specifically I think that the majority of the time, most of us are not solving novel problems.

There is probably a scale of complexity to triviality of task in which it hinders or helps respectively.