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Taking a walk may lead to more creativity than sitting, study finds (2014)

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Re: Taking a walk may lead to more creativity than sitting, study finds (2014)

#41

Post by parpfish »

Gigachad wrote: post #30
__mharrison__ wrote: post #24

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).

Walking with no music + not using your phone. Leaves you plenty of space to think.

but sometimes I need a little burst of the phone/music to serve as a distraction and force me to unplug from the hard problem that i'm fixated on. once i've successfully started thinking about something else, phone/music off and let the productive mind wandering begin

Re: Taking a walk may lead to more creativity than sitting, study finds (2014)

#42

Post by stego-tech »

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.

Re: Taking a walk may lead to more creativity than sitting, study finds (2014)

#44

Post by bobbylcraig »

PyWoody wrote: post #29

Kant was so famous for taking a daily walk at precisely 3:30 p.m. that the residents of Königsberg could set their clocks by it.

Lots of famous historical figures walked. Darwin, Jefferson, Nietzsche, Dickens, Thoreau. More recently (obviously): Jobs.

I wrote a small piece a several years ago on it but have found walking immensely helpful in my debugging efforts. And there's so much research that backs it up.

Re: Taking a walk may lead to more creativity than sitting, study finds (2014)

#45

Post by vlunkr »

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.

Re: Taking a walk may lead to more creativity than sitting, study finds (2014)

#50

Post by hintymad »

stego-tech wrote: post #42

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…

Do you listen to anything while walking, or just listen to nothing while letting your mind clear itself?
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