SO was often a productivity loss for me because I'd scroll down and get distracted by stackexchange questions on the right side of the screen for half an hour

I really do love their other communities so much more. Lots of super interesting content - it feels like a new digg or something. I go to one of the other stacks and look at the most popular non-tech stack posts once or twice a week purely for entertainment. The breakdowns on obscure but interesting topics can get really fun to read!