Taking a walk may lead to more creativity than sitting, study finds (2014)
apa.orgI 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.
Relatedly, I'm convinced that humans cannot achieve any form of peak performance in any domain (athletics, art, business, community organizing) without consistently going for walks. We're all aware of the programmer working at a problem for hours, going for a walk, sitting down, and then elegantly solving the problem in a few lines of thoughtful code (haven't we all experienced this?), and here is an example in another domain...
I have never been at my best rock climbing performance without a substantial amount of walking; even if I am training well, eating well, sleeping well, climbing with others, and super enthusiastic, the element of walking is for some reason critical.
My suspicion is that the human body is designed for walking (eg, we are upright, our shoulders adapted to swing the arm) and that myriad processes simply will not occur or will not occur optimally without walking. I believe restoration on a cellular level is enhanced by walking, that various cognitive and sub-cognitive processes are aided by walking, and that many of these processes sync up with a sort of supermodular (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermodular_function) effect when walking.
that all sounds great, but what if we just use AI to increase velocity and implement a 996 work schedule to squeeze everybody?
I argue that taking a minute or two every hour or so to do a few reps of an exercise clears people's thinking, lends perspective, provides fresh ideas, is great for general mental health, and hence, makes people more productive and happier than sitting for 8 hours or more and going to a gym after.
Small training sessions at work, throughout the day, are also great to build a strong team spirit and feel pumped all day. Unfortunately, people tend to rigidly compartmentalize rather than seamlessly integrate physical activity into their lifestyles.
I tend to agree. I had a gym trainer tell me that the best way for me to learn to do 100 pull-ups in a row (ie the Murph challenge) was to do a few pull-ups every hour or so (grease the groove) until I can do 100 in a day. Then just keep improving from there.
So it's good for strength too!
I've seen similar for pushups - do twice as many pushups as your 1x goal, in whatever reps/set is comfortable, slowly shifting to more reps/fewer sets until you are doing 2 sets of 100 pushups or whatever your goal is.
I found that my best 5-6hrs a day are enough to do the work that I could do in 8hrs. With less time I'm also forced to prioritise, prune more heavily, and be creative, but at the same time, there's stuff that in the short term is always a bad idea to automate and some dumb grunt work can get it done, in which working for longer gets more done if you only care about the short term (like management loves to do).
It reminds me about this video where John Cleese talks about creativity. One of his points is that his work was better than some of his more talented peers simply because he set aside more time to let ideas mature:
Jumping spiders are extremely intelligent for their size. Something they do when they encounter a complex problem is sit and apparently simulate potential solutions until they settle on a plan.
Their solutions can involve indirect routes, paths that initially increase the distance to their targets, etc.
Walking, or jumping, is inherent to their existence. But the ability to wait and iterate on possibilities is uncommon strategy for tiny things.
> Something they do when they encounter a complex problem is sit and apparently simulate potential solutions until they settle on a plan.
Now imagine what ingenious plans they could come up with if only they took a walk instead of sitting while thinking!
Have you read this?
How did we find that out? Are they physically acting out the stuff they’re simulating or is there an EEG for insects?
Would be fun to see if they could learn to think with Portals
We might found out that not having our assumptions about topology gives them an advantage on us!
They might be well adapted to twisty little passages too.
maybe someday we can put spiders in a VR harness, like we can do with mice now...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-024-02554-6 "Moculus"
I think a better way to go is have a little palace/dollhouse they live in, made of tiles with circular pocket-doors for portal creation, and where adjacent rooms can be moved around quickly, to create portal-like wormhole effects.
Perhaps with a few levels of large computer controlled, air-flow/transport surfaces.
Then we breed them for size and superintelligence.
It's our evolutionary background.
Land animals first evolved intelligence when we emerged from the cloudy, murky sea and developed the ability to see shapes (predators, prey) really far into the distance. This required the ability to understand the future and perform spatial reasoning. Not all aquatic species were exposed to such pressures (opportunities), since line of sight vision (especially traveling at speed) is limited.
We got really smart when we became endurance hunters and out-walked and out-ran our prey. Bipedal locomotion and sweating were clutch advantages for sure, but our brains became especially attuned to multi-tasking when walking and running. We could see our prey far into the distance and could plan hours in advance for how to exhaust and corner it. Especially as a group activity. This engaged spatial, temporal, collaborative, and complex reasoning.
We didn't evolve to think at a desk. We evolved to think because it greatly enhanced our hunting skills and survival fitness.
When you walk or run, you're directly engaging machinery that was fine tuned over hundreds of thousands of years.
I’m always very cautious of “evolution” as a justification for any health/wellness advice. I’d like to preface this point by saying I am a fan of daily walk, and do about 30mins of very hilly terrain daily. I just don’t like your argument for it.
1. It’s really easy to create a fictional narrative of what our ancestor’s activity was 50k years ago because of the lack of empirical evidence. The truth is we know only a little and guess at a lot.
2. It’s been associated with many false claims. So many fad diets, fad supplements, and fad exercise routines have made use of evolution to build a narrative of why it’s healthy. I’ve seen both carnivore and vegans use evolution to explain why their diet is correct.
3. The modern environment is just different than the pre-historical environment. We have clean drinking water, unlimited sodium, modern medicine, air conditioned and heated shelter. To me the real question is what is the healthiest decision for me, not what is the healthiest decision for someone 50k years ago.
Whatever it is, clearly sitting 8+ hours in a chair is no healthy way to live. You don’t have to ask what our ancestors did. You can see it in our bodies. What does a healthy body take? Something on the order of 3-4 days a week of intense exercise. Seeing past 20 feet from time to time to avoid eye strain. Getting sufficient sleep. Time to relax to let stress blow off. Simple, obvious truths, but few of us actually live them with the pressures of modern society.
I’m more triggered by someone using a weak argument that is in support of something I also support. The amount of direct empirical evidence for the health benefits of walking is so huge that we shouldn’t relay on the evolutionary argument, which is often associated with scams and pseudo-science.
Furthermore I’m saying that even if there was a very solid evolutionary argument for a specific human health behavior, it would answer the question “what helped humans 50k years ago reproduce”, instead of “how can I live a healthy life in the 21st century.”
The question you pose is of most relevance. 50k years ago matters when we are still the animals of 50k years ago forced to fit into this modern society. What are we? What are our adaptions? What are the requirements to make us fit? Same questions with the same answers today and 50k years ago. Culture evolved a whole lot faster than our bodies have. What does modern culture select for? A question to ponder.
There are highly intelligent species such as whales and dolphins, which cannot walk nor run. There are also highly intelligent species that generally do not walk, such a octopuses and birds. Also you skipped other ways of locomotion, such as crawling and climbing. Sure locomotion is crucial, but it's not a simple just a switch to walking. You made it seem like intelligence is only about walking and running, but in reality intelligence was acquired as a long process of various adaptations. Other examples for crucial adaptations that are completely missing from your narrative would be communication, prosociality, or tool-using
Most of those animals don't have a significant part of my genetic heritage. There are lots of ways to an end, how humans got here is different from others. The comment boxes here don't allow for the space needed to write a book so it is expected to leave out a lot of details.
They can speed up and jump out of the water, making big splashes when diving back in again. Obviously for fun. They won't just float under water, and their mechanisms of movement have evolved in their environment, just like ours did for us.
I don't see your point? Not seeing the forest because of all the trees?
Octopussies have fun moving in weird ways, too. Also exploring, and making fun of captors!
Birds...did you know that their five feathers on the ends of their wings are the equivalent of our fingers, neurologically/network-wise? They sense the currents of the air with them.
Whatever. I think, no matter which species you are belonging to, it can be good to have these systems in more or less autonomous action, moving by themselves, while having a somewhat detached mind, soaring along, thinking about other stuff than the usual chores.
Edit: Maybe something like micro-dosing a little bit of 'Runner's high' by walking aimlessly?
> their five feathers on the ends of their wings are the equivalent of our fingers, neurologically/network-wise?
When was the last time you saw a feather? (Or a bird).
The primary feathers of a bird's wing are anchored to the bird's "hand bones". In modern birds these bones are kind of grown together into a big lump, but the outermost five primaries are attached to the five fingers, or what used to be digits in the bird's ancestors.
Almost daily? Having Hummingbirds atm. Sometimes collecting them in a basket after sudden coldsnaps, warming them up slowly from hibernation, and feeding them :-)
Edit: Have you ever had a big white swan spread his wings, and touch his five feathers against the spread fingers of your hand? 'Gimme five' so to speak. I did.
As I did with Seagulls, Crows/Ravens, Starlings, Blue tits, Robins, city and forest Pigeons, and really long ago a common Swift, which I successfully raised.
Do you have a photoblog?
Nope. I have no public personal presence on any webs. (intentionally)
Thinking about the possible reason you're asking:
I've stopped trying getting good pictures anyways, long ago.
I came to the conclusion that any camera, be it digital compact, action, smartphone irritates the animals. They may be curious initially, but as soon as the electronics try to 'rangefind/sharpen/focus' the picture they are gone. Or getting angry. Not even thinking of flash.
Edit: It destroys the moment. Be it by sounds, or even visible laserfingers fanning out. Or maybe distracting me from holding my internal projection of intent and movement upright. Which I'm thinking of having some impact on the goodwill of the involved animals, too.
Same here. I have a personal mind frame of:
This golden rule has given me more benefits - including finishing the task way faster I would have taken longer if I just sat in front of the computer."If you have the option to work on something you like on your computer or just even glance outside into the sun for a moment, always choose the latter."I always found walking around throwing a stress ball as I think out a new feature far more effective then heading straight to the computer. Much easier to think out the abstraction then getting stuck in the details of my first solution, and only realising a the flaws/a better way hours later.
Convincing people it's an important part of working though, that was the tough one. And now if you spend any time thinking people want you to use Ai for the thinking bit...
Take advantage of canceled meetings.
I step outside and enjoy nature for those few minutes, even if it is just to watch nature.
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.
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...
A few years back I was freelancing by the sea. Every few hours, I'd walk down to the shore and look at the ripples and the waves. I'd go maybe three times a day. I remember this being — aside from profoundly meaningful in itself — very refreshing and beneficial for my work.
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.
Yes, walking could be thought of as a tool to let the mind wander but I think it does more than that and is so widely available to most that it could be turned into a good habit. It's possible any movement would do but how available is swimming for example?(or running in a lunch break without worrying about the sweaty clothes)... It's also easy enough that one needs not build up motivational energy to go for it, could be just an auto pilot habit that never stops on giving back.
Same here. I'll add that this also happens to me with stuff other than walks. For example when taking a shower, or while I'm falling asleep. All activities that allow me to break free from the work I was doing while at the same time not being too demanding to the point where I can think of something else
You were a doubter… as in you thought it was normal to sit inside your house the entire day (or for over 12 hours) without going outside at all? Or what?
Yes, some people, particularly coders, are exactly like that, especially when they're young and everything feels like it comes easily. Young coders can sit for hours on a single task if they're really into it and make good progress. As you get older, and the cognitive load increases, you're forced to find out what you did before doesn't work anymore.
Do you listen to anything while walking, or just listen to nothing while letting your mind clear itself?
Not OP, but it has to be a walk with no headphones for me. As I walk, thoughts seem to bubble up from my subconscious and present themselves for consideration. This doesn’t happen as often if I’m listening to music.
I decided to go offline for this summer. I got a dumb phone and a card for public transportation, instead of the app I'm using now.
Downtime from the algorithmic manipulation has been the breeding ground for my creativity and this is one more step to this direction.
I wish more people knew you can turn iPhones and Androids into dumbphones through MDM and other methods. It would save people money , you wouldn't have to sacrifice security, and they wouldn't complain about losing Google maps or Signal.
Result is no ability to install apps and no web browsing. It's really a smart, smartphone because you get the benefits of it being smart without becoming dumb through the distractions.
Anything I can remove, I can restore. So yes and no.
Few people have the willpower to stand against the addictive design, but I'm not one of them :D
You can use a password to make it so you can't restore. That's the difference with my methods.
There are various ways to store the password to allow some level of management. Give half of it to a friend, write it down, make it super long.
Why fight the system when you can just leave the system?
It would save people money, you wouldn't have to sacrifice security, and they wouldn't complain about losing Google maps or Signal.
Paper maps still work. What do you sacrifice in security in a dumb phone? A dumb phone is much cheaper. You can still call your friends.
Increasingly services want 2fa and other bullshit that only really plays nice with a modern smartphone. They don’t sell a lot of dumb phones fwiw. The network that your old one in the drawer ran on is shut down. The new “dumphones” are usually android phones designed for old people with poor eyesight and dexterity.
For 2FA, why would I want to use my phone? Certainly not SMS. YubiKey primarily, TOTP if necessary. Neither of which I need a phone for.
Most TOTP solutions are phone based, but you're right you can use them on any platform.
Some 2FA is app based, so that you'd need a phone for.
You wouldn't want to, but it's what 99% of people are herded into doing. TOTP is a lot more supported than hardware keys.
It's a mental thing too, the years of habit have built up such that for me smartphones are associated with distraction.
It's like deciding to quit smoking but using an empty cigarette pack to carry your credit cards. Sure, I'm not smoking, but every time I pay for something I have to squash the urge.
I deleted my browser and installed an app on my phone to block all apps except the ones that I have in an allowlist
So you have an article you can point to?
Cider9986 answered for Android, so I'll throw out a suggestion for iPhone.
Assistive Access on iPhone might be an option for people looking for something drastic. Turning it on is simple, but it's pretty brutal and a bit crude in some ways even compared to a feature phone. Your mileage will vary! It's something I often suggest, and never quite recommend.
https://support.apple.com/en-sg/guide/assistive-access-iphon...
You pick the apps you want access to, and the permissions each should have, set a password, and then when you turn Assistive Access on, the phone reboots into a very limited mode. You can have every app you want, but when I've played with it, I've still found it felt too limited for daily use. Maybe I wouldn't find that if I was at the point of buying a feature phone. I can't remember what frustrated me, except that I remember being pleasantly surprised by how much worked, and frustrated by some basic things.
As an example, I was impressed that I could turn on and off a VPN through an app, even though I couldn't see the status of it outside the app. On the other hand, the location permissions felt buggy, and the locations permission changes in Assisted Access mode seemed to mess with the settings in the normal mode too.
I didn't use an article, I just followed the principles and had an LLM do the android debug bridge commands.
Here is an article I found later which did the same thing as me.
(https://jordanherzstein.neocities.org/posts/adb_vanadium/)
For Android basically:
Live in user profile, keep owner profile with appstores. Push apps that are distractions free into user profile.
Use ADB to remove the built in browser because you can't just delete it or not install it because it's a system app. On GOS it's the only system app that is distracting, but I can imagine other phones might have others. Same principle, just remove it with ADB from the user profile.
Never install an app store in the user profile.
Owner profile password mitigation. You have a few options. Make it way too long to easily type and memorize it, write it down on paper and put it away in basement/attic/friends house, give it to a friend, give part of it to a friend(so they can't unlock the owner profile, only you can, but only if you ask them so huge friction).
Personally, I just have a super long passphrase memorized and that's enough too make the friction large enough. And it's really peaceful on the user profile.
Result. Without the owner password, I am in the user profile and I can't browse the web(HN) or install a distracting app like TikTok or install a new browser. If I want to update an app or manage the device or when the device restarts
Back when I was on iOS I used Apple Configurator which is Apple's MDM solution. You need a Mac it borrow one.
You remove Safari and disable installing apps. This is the guide I followed. Pretty sure your have to factory reset your phone first.
So, to install new apps you have to connect the iPhone to the Mac and optionally add a password.
MDM is supported by Apple, uninstalling the browser is not recommended by GOS developers, but I haven't had any issues. Soon, GOS will support MDM, so hopefully that will be an even better solution.
I don’t walk but I run 60-120 min 4-5x a week and could not imagine doing so with headphones. Firmly believe we need time away from the constant stimulation of modern life.
I wish I could do the same, but the running(even at low pace like 6mph) is too taxing without something fun to listen to
I always find treadmill running to be as much of a mental workout staying focused as a physical one
Too taxing in what sense? Too boring? Too hard? If it’s the later, slow down to a brisk walk to build some stamina.
If it’s the former, start watching your surroundings. There’s a ton of things that are fun to watch.
Sounds like they’re using a treadmill, and yes this is about the most boring way possible to exercise
Mostly boring, but in upper zone 2 and sometimes zone 3 does not help. Yeah, I find it helpful to run outdoor. It’s particularly enjoyable to run in a trip because the routes will be unfamiliar
For several years I walked to and from the office, about 1.5 miles each way. Typically in the morning I would listen to a podcast or audiobook, and on the way home I would often continue thinking about whatever I had been trying to figure out at work. I found it useful.
Did you do it in the middle of the work day, or at the begining?
Yeah I started walking a lot since 2021 (before I walked but just a few km to/from work, and sometimes I'd take a bus), since 2020 I worked remotely and I realized how much I need these walks, started walking around 7km daily on average, with 20-30km walks on weekends.
It fixed my back pains. It made me lose weight. It gave me time to reflect on my long-avoided problems. Productivity is like the least important benefit.
Exactly this
Um, could it have been the job itself that killed your productivity and not the walks?
Exactly the opposite for me, I tried to add 10 minutes of walking to my workday (midday) and I only lasted a month. I found it so distracting; I lose so much productivity, would be unable to concentrate for at least an hour afterwards, and sometimes for practically the rest of the workday.
I absolutely do think exercise can help with work, in general, just not immediately after for me. A walk after work is much better, to prepare for the next day.
Try pomodoro instead. It's 25/5 work/break. I started out with 60/15, then 45/15, then 25/5 and found out they were right. These breaks, for me, are just walking elsewhere to do a household task and then coming back. For most, it's likely all you need.
Meanwhile, another commenter who walks around Manhattan says that "distraction is the catalyst", and in the article they have participants walking on a treadmill in front of a blank wall, and others walking "outdoors along a predetermined path" (but where?) with the same results. Furthermore, what they measure and call creativity is thinking of uses for a button or thinking of the word "cheese".
Are you carrying a lot of stress when you were walking 10 min mid-day? I think the wandering, creative mind is the goal and walking often facilitates that, but if some stronger force is keeping you away then it may not work.
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).
Yup, that's the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network
It's the daydreaming/mind-wandering state that occurs when you're not focused on an external task. With all the stimuli of the modern world, I feel like we're being starved of crucial DMN time if we don't engineer conditions like the ones you describe.
Quite the interesting but unapproachable topic. Doesn't help that neurology logic on brain-level is dynamic and general rules are hard to extract.
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
And sometimes to not think. Taking a walk is a great way to clear ones head.
I find that even if I use my phone while walking I will eventually stop paying attention to the phone.
I remember during covid, cyclists were the ones in my town in a poll answering they missed their commute. It's such a nice way of thinking things through and then clearing your mind, then arriving home not thinking more about work.
Truth. Nothing is a greater spurn to creativity (cyclic mental exertion) than time away focusing on cyclic bodily exertion.
The hard part for me is stepping away when I'm grinding on some problem. It always feels like I'm sooo close and this next idea could be the one that lets me walk away victorious.
Usually I'm wrong though and taking a break would be a much better use of my time. Walking, biking, noodling on my guitar, or even going for a drive all seem to work for me.
AI coding has killed this, I should reduce the AI dependacy. The dopamine hit was different when I would wake up to a solution.
I find that I have more time to be a dreamer and let more interesting solutions unfold in my mind. After that the planning and execution is much faster.
Every time after I take a shower I write down all those brilliant Shower Thoughts.
Walking a lot is beneficial for so many other reasons. As an ultra/trail runner I use it for supplemental training so I walk 35 minutes to the office (and the same back) at a minimum. I take stairs most of the times vs the elevator. It's easier to be mobile, you don't even think about it. Even on rest days. Increases my caloric burn, helps me regulate, boosts mood, gives me time to call people, think about stuff. I love this lifestyle. Highly recommended!
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.
I have really noticed recently that a lot of modern media (film, TV, videogames, etc) seems much more based on prior media than on the author's experience of the world. Like everything is now operating at a meta level. It's a little sad.
I wrote a response to this, but then I realised I was responding to the claim that modern media was more derivative, rather than what you actually said, which was that modern media is more _meta_.
Can you go into that a little more? Do you have specific examples that make you sad?
The first example that comes to my mind is the show Community, which I really enjoy, and which doesn't make me sad at all.
P.S. an article I linked to in my original response was https://www.filfre.net/2025/01/the-crpg-renaissance-part-1-f... which I mentioned as it talks about a historical standout in the genre but puts it in the context of the copycats and the schlock. It's now irrelevant to my comment, but I'd like to link to it anyway.
Not OP, but there is a wide chasm between what Community does and what OP was referring to.
Community's thing is that it is a meta show. It uses the meta it references to get a point across, make a joke, or provide a spectacle (a good example of spectacle are the Paintball episodes)
What OP referred to, and what I've noticed, was that media nowadays is just a mashup of what came before with little to say about it. Or to put it in other words: not transformative. The creator likes something, and they put it in their work because it's cool. There's nothing wrong with doing just that, but when you start seeing the same thing over and over again in different works, it gets tiresome.
We're so obsessed with filling every waking moment with something that we don't allow ourselves to have the "a-ha!" moment any more, so we default to "what if X and Y?" where X and Y are thoughts on the surface of our mind rather than two unrelated things that somehow click when the default mode network activates. For example: what do archways in a Shinto shrine have to do with a fox piloting a starship around? Absolutely nothing, and yet for Miyamoto that thought made sense.
Ah, thank you very much for this reply, because I haven't watched Community myself so I didn't realise the confusion between a show that's intentionally about a meta situation vs. ... well what you've written explains my meaning exactly.
You should watch some episodes, even if you don't watch all of it. There's a reason why it influenced popular culture (even if no one remembers it doing so).
For example "Remedial Chaos Theory" is where the term "The Darkest Timeline" comes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remedial_Chaos_Theory
I don't know if I have a good argument for it myself. I have seen a lot of people saying specifically that they based their {thing} on {prior thing} rather than something from life, but I haven't exactly kept a list. Beyond that it's mostly a feeling.
To give an extreme example, just to make what I'm talking about obvious, this recent Instacart superbowl ad comes to mind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXGTaGjqERc
Nothing about the scene or anyone in it is really connected to any reality; the whole thing is like a second-level simulation of prior media.
Your observation reminds me of this book, Simulcra and Simulation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation
The very brief (and bastardised) summary is that we're cutting ourselves from what is real, so we base our art on the fake reality that we're experiencing.
I'll never forget when one of my teachers asked: "who has seen a sheep?" The entire class put up their hand. The next question was "who has seen a live sheep, in front of them?" more than half the class put their hand down. We all know what a sheep looks like, but not because we've been near one.
Yes indeed, I'm aware of it, though I admit I never finished the whole thing. It did make me notice this situation even more acutely.
It's funny that the part everyone quotes from the book (namely the Borges fable and the 'desert of the real itself') is in the introduction. Makes me wonder how many others didn't actually get through it. :)
> The first example that comes to my mind is the show Community, which I really enjoy, and which doesn't make me sad at all.
"Yeah. This is a bottle episode."
How could you mention Shigeru Miyamoto and not mention that Legend of Zelda is primarily about exploring the countryside?
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.
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.
I grew up driving tractors and diggers, it's a very similar thing. Up and down, up and down, Perkins AD3 at 1700rpm for 540rpm PTO shaft speed, it all sounds like a mantra. Write a prayer on a strip of paper, wrap it round the shaft, offer up a prayer nine times a second.
Poetry. I'm not Buddhist but I find the 'metaphysics' of their prayer wheels fascinating.
I'm not a Buddhist either but the Tao helps me find the Way to accept diesel being nearly two quid a litre right when the good weather starts and all the fields need worked.
There is even a latin phrase for it: solvitur ambulando.
This is not what this means. This is not, "had an idea by walking", this means, I can prove the absurdity of certain philosophical ideas by just common sense observation (roughly).
I merely thought it interesting to say that the literal translation vs. the philosophical application (the link) would add to the interpretation and discussion of the posted article.
Solvitur bibando is Balmer’s peak?
Alcohol is not the solution.
Alcohol is the solvent. It dissolves the problem into a solution.
Nice, new to me. Similar in meaning to "cut the Gordian knot"
Is there one for showering?
They didn’t have showers, but you may recall Archimides shouted “Eureka!” after a famous bath time discovery
auri imbres
I was chatting to a therapist friend the other day about EMDR [0] therapy. In short it’s often used in treating PTSD through alternating eye movement, but also alternating sound in headphones or tapping the body on alternating sides.
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...
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.
Similarly, https://sfstandard.com/2026/05/24/los-gatos-netflix-headquar... (with trail photo)
> One place where you’d always find someone from Netflix: the Los Gatos Creek Trail, a paved walking path right behind the office. “We would take our one-on-one [meetings] by just walking out of the building, down to the river, up to the reservoir and back, chatting,” .. Among the people frequently seen on the trail.. was [Reed] Hastings himself. That walk-and-talk tradition is still alive: On a recent spring day, it took just a few minutes after arriving for two people to emerge from Netflix’s office complex to stroll alongside the water, deep in discussion.
I can attest to this. I work in Midtown Manhattan. You'd think walking around meant getting distracted by the all the activity around you that you'd forget about the problem you're trying to solve.
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.
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.
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.
Hence the popular expression "It's good to be punctual, but you don't have to be a Kant about 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.
Darwin was said to have a circular path in his garden that resembled a trench it was so well-worn.
I started doing "powerwalks" on most of my mornings. I aim for the upper end of zone 2 (ca. 135 bpm in my case), which is basically walking as quickly as I can without running, for about 30 minutes. It's really great, as it's both a form of sport/cardio and a mentally refreshing walk. No headphones or input, but I do take a pocket notebook with me so I can write stuff down that pop in my head. On the days I manage to do it, I feel better, calmer, more focused, and my sleep the following night is more restful.
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.
To add to the historical references, here's a quote from Nietzsche: all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
Add Constantin Noica to the list:
> 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
Kierkegaard also valued the stroll quite highly.
If they made a shower you could walk in, every single problem facing humanity would be solved in three weeks.
They do, but sadly the water is just a bit too cold, and sometimes it comes with hail or lightening. It also is commonly when I'm sleeping.
I mean how hard can it be to have a walking pad in a shower...
I now take two very long walks/day- a "working walk" where I walk and answer emails and think, and a "relax" walk where I leave my phone at the desk and just look at the flowers and houses and dogs. It's been amazing for my mental health, physical health, and productivity.
I have above average adhd, enough to drive my poor wife crazy if I run out of my rx. Walking helps a lot! I probably walk a few miles a day otherwise I begin pacing in my house or office.
Same. I prefer walking outside (as would anyone) but I find even walking within my own home is pretty good, for people who have enough space. I may look like a maniac pacing in circles while watching some philosophical YouTube video on the big TV, but it's nice.
Reminds me of this
Men who stare at walls (alexselimov.com) 724 points by aselimov3 28 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 337 comments
I started doing this at work in the late 1970s: if I had to talk with someone at work about new code, design, etc., I would always suggest we walk outside for a while and talk+walk. Big win in creativity, making good group decisions, and making the work day better.
Hear me out. One of the better things I did for myself. Electric standing desk (IKEA idasen, it's cheap and good), samsung ultrawide oled 49, and a small walking pad. Walking pad is like a treadmill, but small so I can easily put it aside and I can switch between sitting and standing and walking and I do all three during the day. It doesn't need much space even. I also have two chairs, one regular (also ikea, marcus - not great, not terrible) and a kneeling one for posture so I switch between when sitting. Really not much of an investment but overall great QOL improvement.
"a small walking pad" - which one did you end up buying and are you happy with it or secretly wished you would have bought a different one?
I bought one called "Zipro New Lite", but it seems to me this one, along with many others, are just "brand" variations from the same chinese manufacturer. No regrets, happy with it, has an app (fitshow) integration with myfitness pal and google health. It has a display for number of steps, calories, duration, etc. on the board itself so you don't even need the app. The only thing I keep track of are steps. Trying to hit at least 8-10k a day.
I had one briefly but I think it's important to think through the logistics of using it. Even the small ones are somewhat heavy and cumbersome. I ended up returning mine because it was too much of a pain to set something up and tear it down just to get steps in. Maybe different if one has a dedicated place for it.
I just bought a WalkingPad M2 and my first day on it was yesterday. I usually sit on my couch while working. I walked about 6 miles yesterday instead! I woke up with sore calves and I think I'm getting blisters but these are probably good signs.
Take magnesium, my friend. Malate in the morning, glycinate in the evening and you're good to go!
at work there is a small conference room with a unSit. Not small - it is shorter, but also wider. I like it and often reserve that room for an hour to get some steps in. However I've never tried any others and so I can't say if I'd be unhappy with the others. I did find a free craiglist treadmill a few years ago, but the setup I had with it meant I was rarely using it.
I don't think I could stand/walk at a desk all day, but I still want one because I could easily do several 1 hour blocks during a day and it would be better. However some ability to get a chair seems important if it is at your only desk.
I bought the DeerRun Q2 last year and like it, although the pad itself is small so it’s only good for somewhat shorter people.
I think walking for around an hour at a time, with no music/earbuds, can be extremely enlightening. I find the first 15-25 minutes my brain is doing like a “cleaning” cycle almost where I think about very surface level things, and then once that is out of the way, my brain just goes on wild explorations of ideas.
I do see more and more that people are either afraid to be with their own thoughts, or don’t know that it is even an option given the amount of technology around.
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
I recommend moving towards a place, where you have access to peaceful, green places tomgo for a walk. In a busy city, I guess most people won't find their peace of mind. (I am just moving away from the city, partly for this reason)
I live in a touristy town so you quickly learn how to weave around people or take the side streets if you want to get anywhere!
I walk at 6.2 km/h average (measured over ~15km downtown distances). This means just weaving through the pedestrian traffic, with some practice it just them all fading into background, no different from lightpoles, bushes or cars. Though an actual forest path is ofc preferrable.
I've become very adept at passing inattentive/slow walkers and maneuvering through the cbd. I dont understand why the vast majority of people walk. so. damned. slow. (not not pay attention to their surroundings.)
I'm a largish guy as well so it probably helps that when people see me coming they get out of the way :-P
I'm lucky I walk twice a day with my coworkers, it's a parking lot not the previous place where it was a trail. It was beautiful in the summer under all that green. And there were paw paw trees so got to eat those when they were ripe.
Funny too like 3 years ago we were discussing ingesting manuals for a RAG thing and now that is my day job.
During COVID I started taking almost daily walks as I drank from the firehose of taking over the code base for a mature software product.
I started tracked the walks using the CityStrides website which made it into a fun challenge. CityStrides lets you mark off streets in a city as "completed" once you've hit all the points on the street according to OpenStreetMap data. The goal being, if you so choose, to visit every street in your town.
I did manage to make 100% of all streets in my town - 300 some miles total? It's a really nice way to get out and about while learning more about where you live.
I would always walk around in a tight circle in my room for a quarter hour. If on a voice call, for hours.
The best investment I've made in my mental health and productivity was a dog.
Don't know where I'd be without my executive assistant.
Can confirm. Pomodoro is an essential productivity and creativity hack. We coders always knew it was true, that your breakthroughs come from walking away from your work, but until you find something like pomodoro you don't realize this is a great habit to normalize. It even works for the shortest breaks.
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.
I get that effect while walking, but also from multi-hour highway (not local) driving when the road isn't crowded. Somehow, having my body do something that takes only a slight amount of continuous awareness, but not zero, seems to enable me to escape mental ruts more easily. For me, it allows for deeper concentration in the creative realm than I can have while sitting.
Friedrich Nietzsche: "Only thoughts reached by walking have value."
David Gelernter describes a theory of consciousness and creativity that explains why this works in his book “The Muse in the Machine”. I recommend it to everyone.
Thomas Edison believed there wasn't a future in alternating current as "a motor won't run it"
Nicolas Tesla wrestled with this problem and one morning while strolling, he looked towards the sun and seen the fog had produced a halo around it. It was the moment he had his epiphany on how he could make an AC motor.
I used to go home during lunch every day to let my dog out. Many days, I was so busy that it seemed like a super chore that would really put me behind. But, it's insane how many insights I had and problems I solved when I forced myself to step away for a bit and do something else. Oddly, now that I work from home, and probably have more time to step away for 10-15 minutes, I do it less. Good reminder to start doing this more!
I like to take a long lunch break during work to eat and take a walk for an hour/two maybe a short swim aswell if i have the time. I find it very pleasant and that problems i was working on or things I was trying to understand more manageable. Usually its just an aimless walk around the city I live in, its nice to see things going on outside my tiny office/bedroom
"Walker" here and glad to see so many others agreeing this helps them. I also talk to myself and find it incredibly helpful, despite my wife thinking I'm a weirdo.
I hope as leaders and future leaders we can create a culture more tolerant of these practices, changing the perception that "if you aren't at your desk, you aren't working."
Realized this during a particularly stressful time in 2021 - back then, I used to spend hours walking just thinking through problems, all night long. I’ve since abandoned the all night long part, but have an almost daily ritual to walk around thinking about whatever problem - small or big - I’m working on at the moment.
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.
I am a runner and have a standing desk. When I run, my mind is more on than at the computer. These days when I run I mentally compose prompts for the LLM when I return to my computer. So beware the illusion that simply walking away is inherently, and unintentionally, meditative. Likewise at my standing desk, the physicality of standing turns all at-desk time into an almost combative wrestling match with my tasks. Just sharing… some optimizations from 15 years of life hacking but still can’t escape the deeper psyche stuff.
This is exactly why I am bullish on voice AI! Walking and voicing my thoughts out to an AI agent who can talk back or take actions for me is very liberating.
I had an intern that did this, it didn't help with learning software development but he thought it was a decent rubber duck in some other domains.
This is great. Maybe before self driving becomes a thing we can convince our capital hoarding tech oligarchs who run the country we need more walkable cities to feed ai inputs
Best habit, by far. I'd also recommend taking a walk free of any devices. I leave my phone at home and walk through the park few mins away form my home.
Two of the best things for my mental health is maintaining a 7 day moving average of +10k steps and working out every Mon-Fri during lunch time.
Always wonder whether this fits with Jeff Hawkin's "Reference Frames" where he ties movement to learning and understanding - and I would also say creativity.
In german, there is an idiomatic way of saying "I don't understand" (especially after attempting to do so multiple times) that literally translates to "Standing on the hose/tube", which is extra fitting here considering that, in both cases, a fix consists of getting up and walking away ;)
Any form of exercise helps. Do not think of one second that it's only for your body -- it's equally important for your mind. I used to ride by bike by the coast every night, 365 days a year, 20km loop for exactly 40 mins. I couldn't have survived all the stress from work without it. Absolutely a lifeline. Don't keep reading my thread, go for a walk!
With agents, you can set them to work on a task, and then head out for a walk while having a think about next steps. Come back, review the results, give it the next steps, and then head out for another walk.
I wonder how hard it would be to get an agent to send me a text message if it gets stuck on something.
I made an MCP server that basically implements all the tools an agent harness would provide. The code is checked out on my server, the MCP server creates git worktrees on "activation" and it can read, modify files, run bash commands etc. I have this setup in typingmind so I can do everything from my phone :p The only problem is that typingmind needs to be in the foreground on my phone, otherwise it will kill the connection.
There was a time where I was often stuck for an hour with nothing but my phone and I kept copying file contents into chat for context so I made this and it works surprisingly well.
I don't know what typingmind is but Termux is very good at keeping the pace when the screen is turned off. If it's just a chat interface you could probably grab someone's weekend hack in your favourite language off the Internet and plug it in through Termux.
> I wonder how hard it would be to get an agent to send me a text message if it gets stuck on something.
Not too hard, aka. I have a friend who did this. Rather than a text message, he uses IRC, but the effect should be the same. IRC is probably a little better.
Assuming you use Claude Code, the concept to look for is 'channels'. It's described as being for sending messages to Claude, but they work both ways. And I see one of the canned channels is iMessage.
Any light intensity physical activity that allows you to disconnect.
I do the dishes manually for that reason.
Hardest part is forcing yourself to leave the computer
Especially with a bug. Why think about it when you can just feed a stack trace to AI and wait 2 more minutes?
And then it wants to edit some random upstream file that is not relevant to the task at hand and we should not edit it, so you tell it “and only edit the files affected by this commit”, and wait two more minutes.
And now it deletes a test, so you tell it “and don’t delete any tests”, and wait two more minutes.
And now it adds logic to disable the core functionality, so now you tell it “and don’t disable the core functionality”, and wait two more minutes.
Etc
After a refreshing walk it suddenly occurred to me - I had forgotten to add "make no mistakes".
desk treadmill
(or should I listen instead of problem solving?) :)
EMDR therapy was invented by Francine Shapiro. She found walking to be effective on herself, and later found that most any form of "bilateral stimulaition" at the right pace will cause certain kinds of brain activity.
I’d say it’s possible to have creativity when you’re sitting as well. I like to think that’s it’s all about staying active. Reading, diarying, calling a friendind. All of that.
I wonder what's the difference on creativity between people deeply specialized in a field and those that have invested interest in many different, unrelated fields, like programming, music and beekeeping for instance.
Possibly related to "showerthoughts", in that removal of stimuli allows for latent realizations to surface.
Or as Arthur Brooks puts it - the shower now is the only place where you dont have your phone on you.
Your comment made me look up "shower phone holder" on Amazon, and I regretted it.
We needed a study for this? I've always had the best ideas while walking. Granted, I always forget them if I don't write them down, but I do have them
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.
Im not sure if Im being old and grumpy but why isnt this obvious?
I think we all know taking a walk is good for you, but it still helps to be reminded. Even better if presented with actual evidence that - yeah, you should probably budget some time in your schedule for a walk or two today.
Studies often measure and quantify things that we believe to be true.
In this same forum I have read someone stating that if it was possible to distill the benefits of exercise in a pill they would consume it, so I would not take for granted anything related to exercise (or diet) with these folks.
Completely agree. I used to take walks during the day to think through problems. I was put on a disciplinary for not being at my desk enough.
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.
I’ve solved many technical problems on the way to or from a coffee shop about a 30min walk from my house :)
I read this book earlier this year, The Brain at Rest: The Life-Changing Science of Doing Nothing by Joseph Jebelli, It's on a similar thread
Of course it does, and is it any surprise the most innovative city and urban centers in the world are the most walkable?
Counterpoint: Silicon Valley is a wasteland of industrial parks
I try to walk 10k steps every day. Not only for my health but also for my mind. It helps me to calm down and gain fresh energy for other tasks.
I agree, this is how I solved one of the advent of code problems last year.
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...
I intuitively agree. Some of my good ideas come from sprint walking...and sitting on the toilet.
So that explains Linus Torvalds and his treadmill desk.
Could have just asked me. I've taken advantage of that in the bulk of my life.
If you like this, you would love meditation!
Absolutely. If the weather isn't nice, I will even walk around in the office.
There’s a Kmart near me that I sometimes walk around when it’s raining outside. Even though it’s not endless like outside, the tall isles block your sight lines so you can wander for a while.
Walking in the cold and/or rain is also quite nice.
How big is your office?
My home office is large enough to walk in circles (I have heard that my grandfather used to walk in circles when thinking, it's probably genetic :P). When I'm in an office building, well these usually extend by a few tens of meters in at least some direction.
I wonder do the same benefits appear while cycling
I depends. It helps clear my mind because I have to pay attention to the traffic here in the city, so solving issues is a step to far for me. I rather walk/shower/do the dishes.
Anecdotally, that has always been true, but you can next-level the creativity with a walk with some nicotine!
My secret is out
> Taking a Walk May Lead to More Creativity than Sitting, Study Finds (2014)
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.
It’s good that they proved it I guess. But they could have just asked literally any person in history doing anything creative as a job.
I do get some good ideas when I am not intensely trying to think of how to solve a problem.
Not only walking, but taking a shower, running errands, relaxing in bed, practicing a hobby, allows me to think outside the box, come up with novel ideas and strange hypothesis that might work once tested.
I think the idea is putting yourself in a mental state that allows you to explore "off the rails".
This is one of the factors that make working from home better for employers than being oxygen starved under some flourescent lamp. Doing some chores is good for thinking too, though historically it has been considered unmanly so we're not going to find prominent philosophers and politicians promoting it.
This is absolutely true. Try taking a meeting or call about problem solving on a walk.
I was not a believer in this, Covid walks using an iPad mini with a SIM card was great.
What about the whole idea came together in the shower thing? Would be interesting to see comparable data for showering.
Enter...Aristotle's Peripatetic school[0].
And now for the peripatetic programmer...
True Story!!
Yes, I am very lucky to be able to walk to work, it really helps with everything
No surprise there. Taking a walk flushes your brain with fresh and different thoughts. That always helps with getting a fresh start on things you're working on.
I write all my best code when I'm driving my car.
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.
I am optimising this: I try to do this while sleeping.
Still too early to showcase what kind of progress I have made here ...
There’s no way anyone who’s ever taken a walk doesn’t know this again the most obvious thing ever is now a paper
"the only thoughts of value are those reached through walking" - Nietszche
(reading that in German might have more nuances)
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.
I especially despise sitting down right after lunch to get back to work.
I must take a walk first.
Taking a walk right after eating helps stabilize blood sugar and digestion.
Highly recommend.
Yeah, and shift your eyes around, it gets you out of your head and makes you more aware of your environment as you walk!
In other news, water is wet.