I usually read hn on the loo (not a shitpost pun/joke) as idle reading, and sometimes I discover interesting products or news. Aside: it feels like being on the toilet is the most "me time" I get lately, so maybe I should change that lol.

Do you read the book first start to finish, and then add it to your bathroom library after for this random reading, or do you go straight to random loo reads?

Honestly, the toilet is like sacred ground for me these days. No kids, no work, no chores. I can read and be left alone and it is literally the only time of my day that is true.

My family probably thinks I have a severe bowel problem because sometimes I hang out in there for like a half hour.

Same here.

Usually it goes directly too loo reads except maybe the first evening where I'm "excited" of the new toy and read it outside, or if I need it as a reference for some reason.

If I don't have a basic understanding of the topic I read the first few chapters sequentially before starting the random picking, though.

Leaving technical books in the bathroom is a crucial hack for lifelong adult learning.

Instead of that I read technical books/websites on/near a laptop that I can make flashcards on, then do Anki on the toilet.

Really, I have little piles everywhere around the house I tend to park for any length of time; I've never been able to do flashcards since my mom made me do them a ton when I was little, one of the ways I just do not learn.

I grew up the opposite; I never directed my learning in any particular direction, just picked up everything by curiosity and osmosis. I've only discovered in my 40s that you can use tools like Anki to just relentlessly hammer a subject into submission i.e. you can choose to know stuff instead of always having to be spontaneously fascinated by stuff.

Watch out, you don't want to condition yourself to need a dump every time you see a code block or forced analogy.

Wow. This method is so ridiculous I just might have to copy it.

Seriously though, I hadn't thought about using that time (which most people are guaranteed to have every single day, several times a day) for learning new things. I think I may start using this method for exploring things that I'd "like to learn some day" but that aren't urgent/currently important for my job. This would be a way to at least make me get started learning something genuinely new!

I bought a kindle tor that very reason. I think it’s worth it since you can’t really get distracted on that