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.
Men who stare at walls (alexselimov.com) 724 points by aselimov3 28 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 337 comments
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...
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)
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.
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.
1. people walking like turtle in front of you
2. people on phone not looking at where they go
3. both
"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."
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.
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.
I'm a largish guy as well so it probably helps that when people see me coming they get out of the way :-P
(or should I listen instead of problem solving?) :)
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...
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.
> 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.
Downtime from the algorithmic manipulation has been the breeding ground for my creativity and this is one more step to this direction.
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
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.
If it’s the former, start watching your surroundings. There’s a ton of things that are fun to watch.
Few people have the willpower to stand against the addictive design, but I'm not one of them :D
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.
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.
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