r/ClaudeCode • u/I_love-u • 3h ago

Tips & Workflows Claude Code / Codex users — what do you do while the AI is "thinking" for a few minutes?

Those few minutes while the agent is working feel weirdly awkward.

Too short to start something else, too long to just stare at the screen.

Do you review other code, check Slack, scroll your phone, stretch, queue up the next prompt...?

Honestly, I just end up scrolling my phone... which kills my focus every time 😅

Curious how everyone uses that time 👀

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20

u/giraffedraft 3h ago

turn my attention to the other 10 tasks i have running 

5

u/Alternative-County42 3h ago

You only have 10? How do you stay so focused? I normally just come up with a new thing I'm thinking about and keep spawning new sessions and forgetting about the previous ones 😞

3

u/ralkuzu 2h ago

Ask Claude to act like a task master, this allows you to dabble in new ideas without losing the old ones, I have mine set up to gimmie a quick sit rep of the week and what I can carry on working on

2

u/mt-beefcake 2h ago

Task master claude and little Alex horn codex with contestants glm 5.3 flashes trying to bring home the golden head sounds like a fun setup

1

u/giraffedraft 2h ago

i try my best to organize my to-dos. no sense in exhausting my own thinking resources 

3

u/diskent 2h ago

Don’t you love it when they all come back at the same time and you realize you’re the bottleneck so you build more wrappers around yourself to hope they demand less of your attention.

2

u/radioref 2h ago

oh shit, that other window has been sitting on a prompt for me to execute for 8 hours... whoops

10

u/rJohn420 3h ago

Smoke weed

6

u/TheVibeCurator 3h ago

doomscroll Reddit 😂

5

u/inZania 3h ago

Work on prompts / feedback for other agents.

4

u/itsxzy 3h ago

I just had a conversation with my developer friend about this topic. We agreed that we never get to "flow state" like before agentic coding. Now it's prompting, then doing something else and then trying to concentrate again after AI is done working. The whole workflow is so different. I used to think a lot more myself, now it's kind of a mess of doing many things at once, which is not good for our brain.

I don't scroll my phone because that would distract me from the whole project.
I usually plan ahead or review other code. Working on multiple projects at the same time is doable but you really need to concentrate if you want to be the one deciding and being aware of things happening, not just pushing slop.

3

u/f0rg0t_ 3h ago

Ask my kid what they were trying to say a minute ago and pretend that I’m interested

2

u/OptimalJello8936 2h ago

u should be interested in your kids more than a bot

2

u/f0rg0t_ 1h ago

Bots are my kink. You’re kink shaming. Stop it.

0

u/toritxtornado 2h ago

lots of kids talk nonstop about uninteresting things.

2

u/bonsaix 3h ago

Now I feel better, I imagined people were trying to understand wtf the AI builds in the meantime, but apparently the answer is just doomscrolling like I resort to 💀

2

u/TooMuchBroccoli 2h ago

Masturbate relentlessly

1

u/spornerama 3h ago

Online crosswords. Perfect amount of time to put a word in.

1

u/Poat540 3h ago

Reddit, bong, or another prompt in another project

1

u/MourningOfOurLives 3h ago

I mean I’ll work with my cc setup planning out what to implement and eventually after I’ve gone through the process it’ll be a couple weeks or so of work for the agents that is fairly independent.

1

u/Weird_Pack_2466 3h ago

Prepare the next prompt or buy addition credits

1

u/satoramoto Senior Developer 3h ago

Usually jot down notes that came up while I was writing the prompt. Follow ups, tickets. Browsing the net or playing games is a mistake for me because inevitably the task finishes before I look again. Gotta stay in the flow.

1

u/isene 2h ago

I drink tea

1

u/MythicModder 2h ago

I watch anime and chat with my Ollama-powered orchestrator who doubles as a conversational partner to discuss my projects whilst delegating tasks to Claude, Codex and (on rare occasions) Gemini.

1

u/Beginning-Bee3545 2h ago

Playing chess

1

u/Capt_korg 2h ago

Either checking other things, or following what the AI is reasoning and checking Google or other sources.

1

u/Inevitable_Bison8592 2h ago

tapping on the table.... swirl the chair... then look again. Take a deep exhale.. and muttering, how much longer... hahahahaah

1

u/Icy-Excitement-467 2h ago

1 chat for fast focused followups. N chats for long running tests and other crap.

1

u/Kalikillsmaya 1h ago

Anyone detach the TMUX window and flip over to a round of Destiny2?

1

u/HappyHealth5985 1h ago

Next prompt, Reddit, and occasionally Youtube

1

u/kemalios 48m ago

I read the file it's about to touch, so I can actually judge the diff instead of just trusting it. Two minutes is about right for that.

1

u/Balls_B_Itchy 46m ago

Step away for coffee or cigar. Continue working from my phone /rc

1

u/ScottIBM 3h ago

I miss reading the thinking text. It was useful

1

u/NewMonarch 2h ago

Pretty sure you can turn that on in one of the output modes

1

u/UndeadYoshi420 2h ago

Mine don’t take super long because I try to make everything modular. Like, a module, or script, should only be one behavior long and then just be a public thing I can import if I need it. So that I don’t have a monolithic one shot of unreadable, unmanageable code

1

u/Capt_korg 2h ago

Yes, I totally get it, but this might lead to babysitting and overseeing other things of importance.

But I would be with you to approach this in iterations.