Followups from my previous post inspired me to invent the word 'microbored': the level of boredom that happens when something is right on the threshold where you look for something else to do.

For example, if I'm waiting for a compile that takes 1 second, I'll just sit for a second until it's done; if it takes 5 minutes or more then I _obviously_ need to find something to do while I wait (go make a coffee, open up a blog post, check Mastodon, whatever). But somewhere in between, at maybe the 10–20 second mark, it's a dilemma: sitting for 20 seconds doing nothing is a bit annoying, but anything I start doing in those 20 seconds won't be finished when I need to get back to looking at the results of the compile, and maybe the mental context switch costs more than it saves.

That's microboredom. It's not _too_ unpleasant in itself (there are much worse forms of boredom). But it's a more insidious waste of your time than a 5-minute delay, _because_ there's no way to spend the time more usefully or pleasantly.