Ask HN: What do you do while ChatGPT-5 is thinking?

I use ChatGPT-5 Thinking a lot for day-to-day work. I prefer the response quality over speed, so I always pick the longer-thinking model. It takes ~1–5 minutes (often 1–2) to respond, but those short waits are getting increasingly distracting.

I find myself doing something else, and it eventually takes more than the thinking time. Such as right now, it takes me 5 minutes to write this post, and ChatGPT responded like 3 minutes ago.

Does anyone else have the same problem? What do you do during these gaps? :D

4 points | by cuber_messenger 3 hours ago

6 comments

  • dotancohen 16 minutes ago
    Anki. Or pushups.

    Anki and AnkiDroid are perfect for filling in those few minutes throughout the day. And if you're in a private environment, a small set of pushups a few times a day keep you awake and make you feel great.

  • chainofthought 3 hours ago
    I'm always prompting. I let Gemini calendar my time (Google Calendar, of course) so that there are zero gaps where unwanted human thought could sneak in. I use an agent manager called Pelican to check in with all of my agents every second and have them tell me what I should be working on next using meta-agents, which are agents running tools in a loop to run tools in a loop. It's super effective!
    [-]
    • iamflimflam1 4 minutes ago
      I can’t tell if this is a serious post or not…
  • loveparade 3 hours ago
    I often use that time to spec out a future task. Either by going through Github issues, doing some research and adding details, or by spinning up another codex/claude session to create a detailed design document for a future task and iterating on that. So one agent is coding while another is helping me to spec out future work. So when the coding agent is done I can immediately start on the next task with a proper spec, reducing margin for error.
    [-]
  • cantouch 2 hours ago
    Use Black Screen app (https://blackscreen1.com/) to stare at the backness of all your monitors. Or look at some random photos with it. :-)
  • pols45 3 hours ago
    I cut and paste the chats into other GPTs to see what they have to say.
  • AliceH0521 2 hours ago
    [dead]