Days after I graduated high school in 2004, my parents moved me and my family out to a 15 acre property in the middle of nowhere. Mowing the lawn on a riding mower was an all-day affair. The time I spent on that mower with just my own thoughts were some of the most meditative and creative of my life.
> some of the most meditative and creative of my life
This sounds like a worthy pursuit. We control the most powerful machines to ever have existed, yet it's all too easy to use them for anesthetic distraction. Offline relationship and meditation help develop our capacity to use these machines for something better.
It's astounding how many work problems I've found the solution to in just. the 80 ft walk to the bathroom. If I ever managed people, I would absolutely mandate scheduled movement/calisthenics/walking breaks. Almost seems like a cheat code.
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.
Some of the most complex problems I've ever solved were solved when I was mowing my own lawn with a push mower. Just in a trance. Many of the best life decisions I've ever made were when I was on a walk, thinking things through.
Absolutely agree. I circumnavigate Lake Merritt pretty much every day mostly because it puts my brain a good place to be productive. The exercise is helpful too.
Walking, showering, sleeping, and riding a bike are great ways to debug code.
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).
Dictation + Claude enable this to be an actual working modality now. Does anyone else find themselves working in this way. (In addition to decompression walks of course!)
I was a doubter until COVID. Then I built a habit of 30 to 60+ minutes of walking a day, ~1.5 to 5mi depending on length and pace.
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.
I'm convinced that humans can't (or at least, shouldn't) actually work 8h a day. I'd argue that taking an hour to exercise or walk during the work day and working maybe 6 hours would make people more productive and happier than just working 8h.
Unfortunately management thinks that lines of code written or token usage or seats in butts or {insert random quantitative metric} equals peak productivity.
I love to walk and think through things, but I honestly think walking itself is just a tool. It just allows your mind to wander as long as you are not busy (not alone, listening to a podcast, etc) and in the modern world it is a bit too easy to get distracted.
Besides the productivity boost (and I know you already mention a boost to your well-being), this is one of the simplest yet effective things you can do to improve your cardiovascular health. I had a heart attack at 40 and 30 mins a day is the minimum recommended, so 60+ is great.
It makes sense. It hard to think creatively when your environment is stagnant. You need some new sights and sounds to kick things along, especially when you’re stuck on something.
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 intent of the original Zelda game (and every Zelda title since) was to give players a "miniature garden that they can put inside their drawer." His inspiration came from the fields, woods, and caves outside Kyoto that he had explored as a boy, and he has always tried to impart this sense of exploration and limitless wonder to players through his Zelda titles.
> When you can’t carry an idea forward, you have to climb a hill. You overcome an internal obstacle by creating an external one.
> If you want to achieve cultural excellence, you must live to be 70, and to live to be 70, you must learn to walk every day. Walking is askesis itself—the ultimate form of practice—and all sports are nothing more than a series of variations on the theme of walking. You are facing a long-distance race, not a sprint. You must therefore make your body an ally, and if man’s animality is his mobility, then you are obliged to respect your moving being
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[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 61.7 ms ] threadhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvitur_ambulando
1. people walking like turtle in front of you
2. people on phone not looking at where they go
3. both
This sounds like a worthy pursuit. We control the most powerful machines to ever have existed, yet it's all too easy to use them for anesthetic distraction. Offline relationship and meditation help develop our capacity to use these machines for something better.
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.
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).
It’s a good opportunity to “triage” the day ahead.
If I have a vexing bug, I often “fix” it, during my morning walk.
https://www.inferterra.com/the-new-workspace-a-first-princip...
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.
Unfortunately management thinks that lines of code written or token usage or seats in butts or {insert random quantitative metric} equals peak productivity.
But back to your productivity angle: Stephen Wolfram wrote about the productivity benefits (for him) of walking while working: https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2019/02/seeking-the-prod...
(reading that in German might have more nuances)
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.
https://web.archive.org/web/20100204115941/http://www.gamesp...
> the intent of the original Zelda game (and every Zelda title since) was to give players a "miniature garden that they can put inside their drawer." His inspiration came from the fields, woods, and caves outside Kyoto that he had explored as a boy, and he has always tried to impart this sense of exploration and limitless wonder to players through his Zelda titles.
> When you can’t carry an idea forward, you have to climb a hill. You overcome an internal obstacle by creating an external one.
> If you want to achieve cultural excellence, you must live to be 70, and to live to be 70, you must learn to walk every day. Walking is askesis itself—the ultimate form of practice—and all sports are nothing more than a series of variations on the theme of walking. You are facing a long-distance race, not a sprint. You must therefore make your body an ally, and if man’s animality is his mobility, then you are obliged to respect your moving being