Geez, the amount of stuff I got done, problems I solved, and general boost to well-being I achieved was lost on me until a job pushed those walks out of the workday. My productivity wasn’t the same.
Definitely going to block off a walk around the harbor during most workdays going forward so I can refresh the slate so to speak.
It's very cool to go to sleep and wake up knowing what the solution to the problem is.
The key for incubation for me is to make sure my brain can churn without distractions (that means no listening to podcasts, music, etc while performing said action).
I like the story of Shigeru Miyamoto getting the idea for flying through archways in Star Fox from walking through archways in a Shinto shrine near the Nintendo headquarters. It wasn’t from playing other video games or reading about game development, it was just from thinking creatively about his real world environment right outside the office.
The theory is that it helps connect the left and right halves of the brain to allow trauma to be processed emotionally.
I’ve been wondering since if that’s why walking / running helps with creative processing?
[0] https://www.bacp.co.uk/about-therapy/types-of-therapy/eye-mo...
But I've found that distraction is the catalyst. Creativity for me comes when I focus on something else for a while, not grinding on the same problem with unwavering focus.
Don't know where I'd be without my executive assistant.
One transformation, for example, required getting permission to sell songs for $1 each when the labels all wanted to price each song differently. That required getting alignment from various titans at the record companies.
The way he accomplished this was to take these leaders on walks in the hills behind apple hq. Read about it in the biography of Jobs by Walter Isaacson.
I wonder how hard it would be to get an agent to send me a text message if it gets stuck on something.
Men who stare at walls (alexselimov.com) 724 points by aselimov3 28 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 337 comments
I’ve also found that during these walks, the more I talk out loud to myself and move my hands as if I’m writing on a whiteboard, the faster I get to an answer.
1. people walking like turtle in front of you
2. people on phone not looking at where they go
3. both
It’s a good opportunity to “triage” the day ahead.
If I have a vexing bug, I often “fix” it, during my morning walk.
I did challenge it, saying walking helps me think, and asked whether they paid me to type or solve problems? They obviously said they paid me to solve problems, but at my desk... Sigh. Didn't stay there long.
No-one distracting me, no-one can phone me, nothing to do but sit there and look out of the window, try and keep the nose between the ditches and the oily side facing the ground.
Then when I get home I just need to type it all in.
Still too early to showcase what kind of progress I have made here ...
https://www.inferterra.com/the-new-workspace-a-first-princip...
Note publication year. This might have been very useful in 2014. But we’re now in the agentic era. Sure, I was a skeptic for the last three years, but as of December the models are bursting at the seams with insight and creativity. I personally haven’t had a creative thought since March. My agents work on one monitor, the other monitor has a YouTube playlist of videos about yak shaving agentic loops. But I imagine that my agents will be consuming those videos as transcripts by the end of the summer.
I must take a walk first.
Taking a walk right after eating helps stabilize blood sugar and digestion.
Highly recommend.
(reading that in German might have more nuances)
