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stego-tech 5 hours ago [-]
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.
neya 1 hours ago [-]
Same here. I have a personal mind frame of:
"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."
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.
kristiandupont 2 hours ago [-]
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:
Do you listen to anything while walking, or just listen to nothing while letting your mind clear itself?
turzmo 3 hours ago [-]
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.
shrubby 2 hours ago [-]
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.
Cider9986 2 hours ago [-]
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.
shrubby 2 hours ago [-]
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
Cider9986 2 hours ago [-]
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.
patrickdavey 2 hours ago [-]
So you have an article you can point to?
Cider9986 40 minutes ago [-]
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.
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.
appplication 3 hours ago [-]
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.
hintymad 2 hours ago [-]
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
hawaiianbrah 2 hours ago [-]
I always find treadmill running to be as much of a mental workout staying focused as a physical one
mantas 2 hours ago [-]
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.
tass 2 hours ago [-]
Sounds like they’re using a treadmill, and yes this is about the most boring way possible to exercise
hintymad 58 minutes ago [-]
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
__mharrison__ 6 hours ago [-]
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).
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.
Gigachad 6 hours ago [-]
Walking with no music + not using your phone. Leaves you plenty of space to think.
parpfish 5 hours ago [-]
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
calmbonsai 6 hours ago [-]
Truth. Nothing is a greater spurn to creativity (cyclic mental exertion) than time away focusing on cyclic bodily exertion.
parkersweb 37 minutes ago [-]
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?
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.
Nition 3 hours ago [-]
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.
frogulis 2 hours ago [-]
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.
jschveibinz 9 hours ago [-]
There is even a latin phrase for it: solvitur ambulando.
Nice, new to me. Similar in meaning to "cut the Gordian knot"
gorgoiler 7 hours ago [-]
Solvitur bibando is Balmer’s peak?
aaron695 6 hours ago [-]
[dead]
antonvs 7 hours ago [-]
Is there one for showering?
Ifkaluva 5 hours ago [-]
They didn’t have showers, but you may recall Archimides shouted “Eureka!” after a famous bath time discovery
fsckboy 4 hours ago [-]
auri imbres
donatj 7 hours ago [-]
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.
wenc 3 hours ago [-]
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.
xrd 7 hours ago [-]
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.
> 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.
6 hours ago [-]
wasting_time 4 hours ago [-]
To add to the historical references, here's a quote from Nietzsche: all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.
PyWoody 6 hours ago [-]
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.
kirubakaran 5 hours ago [-]
Hence the popular expression "It's good to be punctual, but you don't have to be a Kant about it"
bobbylcraig 4 hours ago [-]
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.
tmnvix 2 hours ago [-]
Darwin was said to have a circular path in his garden that resembled a trench it was so well-worn.
lizardking 6 hours ago [-]
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.
gorgoiler 7 hours ago [-]
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.
Cider9986 2 hours ago [-]
Reminds me of this
Men who stare at walls (alexselimov.com)
724 points by aselimov3 28 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 337 comments
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.
h4kunamata 7 hours ago [-]
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
lukan 6 hours ago [-]
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)
rjh29 6 hours ago [-]
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!
lstodd 6 hours ago [-]
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.
senectus1 2 hours ago [-]
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
ChrisMarshallNY 6 hours ago [-]
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.
WalterBright 5 hours ago [-]
Could have just asked me. I've taken advantage of that in the bulk of my life.
QGeometry 2 hours ago [-]
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!
dwd 3 hours ago [-]
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.
sghiassy 6 hours ago [-]
Hardest part is forcing yourself to leave the computer
refactor_master 6 hours ago [-]
Especially with a bug. Why think about it when you can just feed a stack trace to AI and wait 2 more minutes?
Ifkaluva 3 hours ago [-]
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
m463 3 hours ago [-]
desk treadmill
(or should I listen instead of problem solving?) :)
m10ax 3 hours ago [-]
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.
winterbourne 6 hours ago [-]
Possibly related to "showerthoughts", in that removal of stimuli allows for latent realizations to surface.
rr808 6 hours ago [-]
Or as Arthur Brooks puts it - the shower now is the only place where you dont have your phone on you.
xnx 7 hours ago [-]
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.
6 hours ago [-]
matt_teresi 5 hours ago [-]
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!)
Absolutely. If the weather isn't nice, I will even walk around in the office.
Gigachad 6 hours ago [-]
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.
colonelspace 7 hours ago [-]
Walking in the cold and/or rain is also quite nice.
ferguess_k 9 hours ago [-]
I intuitively agree. Some of my good ideas come from sprint walking...and sitting on the toilet.
bethekidyouwant 2 hours ago [-]
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
wanoir 3 hours ago [-]
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.
RobRivera 5 hours ago [-]
My secret is out
DaveZale 4 hours ago [-]
"the only thoughts of value are those reached through walking" - Nietszche
(reading that in German might have more nuances)
platevoltage 6 hours ago [-]
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.
yepyoukno 8 hours ago [-]
Yeah, and shift your eyes around, it gets you out of your head and makes you more aware of your environment as you walk!
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g
Downtime from the algorithmic manipulation has been the breeding ground for my creativity and this is one more step to this direction.
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.
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 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.
https://redd.it/1731ozp
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.
If it’s the former, start watching your surroundings. There’s a ton of things that are fun to watch.
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 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.
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...
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.
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.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solvitur_ambulando
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.
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.
> 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 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.
Men who stare at walls (alexselimov.com) 724 points by aselimov3 28 days ago | hide | past | favorite | 337 comments
(https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47920074)
1. people walking like turtle in front of you
2. people on phone not looking at where they go
3. both
I'm a largish guy as well so it probably helps that when people see me coming they get out of the way :-P
It’s a good opportunity to “triage” the day ahead.
If I have a vexing bug, I often “fix” it, during my morning walk.
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
(or should I listen instead of problem solving?) :)
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)