That's what the second monitor is for.

Which means the actual answer is miss the sudo prompt for a password and time out the update...

I read the code I just wrote before finding out I have some issue meaning I'll have to re-compile, 20 minutes in.

Edit: Oh shit, you likely mean not my own code. In that case I just read their code and pretend I know what's going on.

Obligatory XKCD

Non-meme answer: something light, like read the news headlines, check some emails. Basically, I don't want to burn too many of my mental cycles while the cpu burns many.

The first and most important step is to go grab a cup of coffee. After I just waste time doing other stuff, like browsing ~~reddit~~ lemmy.

Cheer the computer along every step and offer motivational speeches

Lol, compile times are usually like at least double that on the hardware I run 😂.

I just usually visit reddit, or in the last week or so, Lemmy. Sometimes I do code/script corrections, but rarely to be honest.

Have a long cigarette break outside

To be fully effective with your time, go get a cup of coffee first, and then start the compiler. ;-)