It may seem like a silly question, but what do you do while you work? Many jobs require your concentration. For example when I was writing computer programs I would become so enveloped in my work that I could think about nothing else, in fact even hunger sometimes escaped me. You can ask my wife, she’ll tell you that I’m in ga-ga land when I’m programming.
Watchmaking does require me to focus and concentrate on my work, but there are also many parts of what I do which are very rote. I am often able to think about other things while working. I’m not usually solving the world’s problems, but sometimes I solve my own. Today I considered the awful task of trying to purchase a new car. Yuck! I have a plan now. I’ll develop it further over the coming days and execute it with success, I hope.
Just be careful to give enough attention to your work that you don’t make any mistakes.
Watchmaking can in fact be a lonely job for this reason. If you’re not in a retail environment, as I am, and you aren’t constantly interrupted by sales people and co-workers you may start talking to yourself and getting lost in your own head because of the nature of the job. That is one of the reasons I like the retail environment. I’m never alone with myself for too long 
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At work I am constantly jumping from task to task, so I am almost never in deep concentration, but I am able to think about everything under the sun — work, life, the weather, my next watch purchase
, etc etc. Unfortunately, due to the constant interruption I can never keep one thought for very long.
I find it neat that you program as well. I stepped off of a very similar career path before deciding to become a watchmaker. I was pursuing interactive multimedia design and I found it would consume me. My mind would still be racing with code when my head hit the pillow at night and I’d often wake up with solutions to coding and design problems in the middle of the night. In the shower, while eating a bowl of cheerios, taking a walk, you name it. I ate, slept, and breathed code and imagery. The thing I love about watchmaking, is that when I leave work, I leave my work at work. Mind you, coding still gets the best of me at times.
What do I think of at work? Recently, mostly about how much more environmentally conscious the manufacturing of quartz watches ought to be annnd why on earth so many “high end” watch companies still use pin regulators.
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