I’m a fidgeter - my hands are always looking for something to play with. I’m the kind of guy who will rip up his tablecloth or napkin, or pull the label off of his soda bottle. I don’t buy click pens because I’ll drive the people around me insane, and I can’t use mechanical pencils because I’ll break the lead with my incessant fiddling (click all the way out, push back in, repeat).
My current favorite toy is a medium-sized binder clip. It’s got a lot going on with it for my hand to play with and it’s also pretty quiet.
Any of you guys have a favorite object for keeping that part of your brain occupied?
edit: That should be “Busy Hands Dopers.” Now I feel dumb.
I am also a fidgeter, but unlike you I don’t tablecloth or napkins but I fold them over and over again, I’ll play with the salt and pepper shakers or whatever else is on the table.
Regular paper clips are my best toy at work, unfolding them twisting them.
I have received a lot of “stress balls” from coworker over the years to stop me from playing with my “destapler” or pens.
Basically anything that lands in my hands I play with!
I have a whole desk full of little widgies. A current one is a soft ‘depanner cup’ (looks like a short section of corrugated rubber shock-absorber or steering-ram cover) that’s made from magnetic rubber. It and one of the rare-earth magnets provide Hours Of Fun. It’s really, really soft, has a hole I can stick a finger in and then scoonch-pop it on my desktop, and stick it in various ways to metal fittings within reach. Okay, I’m weird, but you knew that already.
Ah, here’s a picture that’s exactly like mine: depanner cup
But yeah, I can get mileage from things like staple removers and binder clips as well.
My hair is pretty often a target. I click my pens incessantly (trying to transcribe some interviews I did was a cringe-inducing experience). I agree that binder clips are fantastic. At restaurants, I can fiddle with a straw wrapper for a good long while.
If I’m by the computer (which is most of my waking hours) then it’s the mouse, of course. I’m constantly clicking and highlighting text at random. Scroll up, scroll down, scroll up, scroll down. I’ve been known to induce epileptic fits for people reading over my shoulder.
Otherwise, whatever I have at hand: the remote control, napkins, the toenail clipper, pieces of Lego my son left in the living room, my belt, my wife’s hair clips, a rubber band, whatever. I’m an equal opportunity fidgeter.
It’s stupidly addictive, but kind of causes problems because my hands end up dried-out and blue after too long with it. But it’s way fun, better than Silly Putty.
I bought three of those for my daughter for Christmas. The hypercolor ones are kind of fun, but I’d imagine it would go from ‘fidgeting’ to ‘a challenge’ rather quickly. It takes a good bit of playing to get it warm enough to change color…putting in a furnace vent will do it rather quickly though.
I want to pick up the magnetic one, but some people say it leaves iron filings on their skin and I’d rather not have to deal with that.
I play with a really huge bare wire thermocouple. It’s two wires, copper and constantan (which is silvery), an eighth of an inch in diameter, welded together at one end in a ball of metal with a color somewhat intermediate between the two legs. It’s only 3" long, but fat fat fat. The metal is fairly shiny from handling.
A few minutes ago I finished something stressful and sat down to check the Dope and play with my thermocouple, and actually thought, “Ahhh, thermocouple” as I picked it up.
Years ago, I had a lovely little group of audio connector parts; you could click them together, or pull them apart, and you could unscrew a couple of the parts and see their innards. There was a lot to do. (Some of you will remember the communicators on the Man From U.N.C.L.E. Much like that.)
Lost it in a move. Bummer. But I replaced it with a Ball-Strike Indicator. This really satisfies my inner “Captain Queeg.” I can click away happily for hours. OCD has rarely been so much fun!
I keep one or more pieces of paper (often bus schedules I no longer need) in my coat pocket so that my hand can tear off pieces and fold them up.
I also have a bad habit of picking at my nails when they’ve gotten too long. In fact, in the middle of this post, I paused to pick at my nails while I thought of the next thing to write. Time for a clipping, methinks.
I have a small magazine stand (made by my grandfather) next to my recliner. Keep lots of stuff on it. I rotate thru various of those tricky take-apart-puzzle things. (Name for these? Amazon calls them “Assembly & Disentanglement Puzzles”. Ugh.) I get new ones as gifts plus I bring old ones out of retirement. One of the 3 I got for Xmas is really cool. Just 2 pieces but a complicated sequence of moves to take them apart. Once I get bored with it I’ll attack the other 2.
I also have crosswords and such, sort of the same thing in keeping busy.
But my real, serious new busy hand addiction is my Nook Simple Touch. Rooted it and I’m running various Android games and apps. I think smartphone/tablets are changing how people fidget.
A student once gave me a “worry stone”. A flat diamond shaped polished stone with a depression on one side you are supposed to rub. Between a rock and an tablet, I’ll take the tablet.
