I’m curious what this means for mainly intellectual jobs/skills. What’s the difference between mind wandering and, er, thinking? We can easily separate “programming” from “thinking about what’s for dinner,” and say the latter is wandering - but what about “could I do this another way? What was that technique I read about yesterday? But if I use that, then it might have this downside, which would mean x happens, and in scenario y that would be bad because z...” Is that wandering or focus? It’s certainly about what happened in the past and what will happen in the future (or will never happen at all). And it surely could make you unhappy. But it also seems very necessary!
I'm not sure there really is a difference. I often find myself drifting off into code issues - I've had many an epiphany while trying hard to focus on something completely different.
