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.

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.

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).

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.

To add to the historical references, here's a quote from Nietzsche: all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

There is even a latin phrase for it: solvitur ambulando.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvitur_ambulando

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.

In the field of hacking, a great way to make progress on a thorny programming puzzle is to be anywhere other than in front of an actual computer.

Steve Jobs transformed four industries.

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.

Could have just asked me. I've taken advantage of that in the bulk of my life.

Unless you like me, like to walk fast so you go back home ungrier than never because:

1. people walking like turtle in front of you

2. people on phone not looking at where they go

3. both

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.

Each morning, I take a 5K walk (about 3 miles).

It’s a good opportunity to “triage” the day ahead.

If I have a vexing bug, I often “fix” it, during my morning walk.

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!)

https://www.inferterra.com/the-new-workspace-a-first-princip...

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.

Hardest part is forcing yourself to leave the computer

Possibly related to "showerthoughts", in that removal of stimuli allows for latent realizations to surface.

In other news, water is wet.

"the only thoughts of value are those reached through walking" - Nietszche

(reading that in German might have more nuances)

Absolutely. If the weather isn't nice, I will even walk around in the office.

I intuitively agree. Some of my good ideas come from sprint walking...and sitting on the toilet.

My secret is out

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.

Yeah, and shift your eyes around, it gets you out of your head and makes you more aware of your environment as you walk!