When the whole fidget spinner was was going around a few years ago, I laughed at it just like everyone else did. After all, this thing was a toy, and usually an expensive one. Those going on about the benefits were probably easily distracted. Like cats.

But I got to tell you, I have a thing for fidget spinners.

I have a serious case of ADD. I always have had. Often times my attention is in six different places at once. For example, right now, I’m writing this post, forcing Claude to automate adding the idle inhibitor to 31 different waybar themes, watching a YouTube video, and reading the third Dresden Files book. Just on a side note, if someone could tell the Claude guys, that their ability to write scripts to automate tasks is going to suffer due to their inability to realize that they know nothing about absolute paths in Linux, that would be great. Also, I need to write a blog post about how much the Dresden Files is pissing me off. Who writes a book about wizards and then takes the wizard’s power away from them? It’s just dumb.

Sorry, I got distracted.

The fidget spinner, for some reason, helps me keep focus on just doing one thing. Now, times like now, it’s hard since I’m typing, but when I’m reading (which is mostly what my job consists of) I can have that thing in one hand and my eyes on the text, and for some reason, I stay much more focused on what I’m doing. I’m less likely to go find a random cat video or a farming video on YouTube.

Again, why this works, I do not know.

I’ve bought three of these things now, and they all provide some sort of magic that lets my brain stay on task. It’s not foolproof. If my attention gets grabbed by a notification somewhere, there’s not much that can be done. But a lot of the time, I can get more work done if I can play with this silly little toy.

One thing is, I’m not sure it would work for everyone. Your milage may very, as they say. But it’s worked a bit for me, which makes me feel silly for laughing at all those people who bought them ages ago.