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I am a developer and almost all the solutions to my software engineering (architectural) problems have occurred to me when I was walking. Even sitting down quie

I am a developer and almost all the solutions to my software engineering (architectural) problems have occurred to me when I was walking. Even sitting down quietly dosen't work. I have to keep walking. It has gotten so absurd that I do a lot of walking at my work, usually in an empty conference room and people have many a time wondered if I do any work at all. But, I love it. The challenge, the walk and the solution is exhilarating to me.

Pica_soO 8y ago
We spend aeons hunting aka problem solving on the walk- i never understood why thinking was supposed to be a thing of motionlessness. I always suspected its the triumph of some educators deep down in history - who had a preference for a quite audience over one restless challenging the presented ideas.
- kumarvvr 8y ago
  I believe most work places ought to have large sprawling gardens and beautiful landscaping. It would make me more productive for sure. I am from India and most offices are in the middle of concrete jungles. Even in IT companies, there are no places to walk around. It's a shame. Looking at houses in the US, especially rural areas makes my mind orgasm. Such serene places.
blinkingled 8y ago
Good for you :) - for me, laying down with eyes shut is when I will have attractive solutions to hard problems! Happens sometimes standing in the shower but those all tend to be strategic ones unlike the tactical ones that get solved laying down. Crazy stuff!
- kumarvvr 8y ago
  Reminds me of a chapter from the book "Surely you must be joking Mr. Feynman" (as far as I remember). The chapter describes how Feynman came across how his colleague visualizes a task. IIRC Feynman does it visually (imagines something visual in his mind) and thus can do voice related activities while he is thinking, but his colleague does it by visualizing sound (he thinks tick-tock sounds in his mind), so can do visual tasks while he is thinking. Really fascinating how a human mind works. Also reminds me of the quote by Einstein, something about judging the ability of a fish to climb a tree. Everyone has a unique and effective way to navigate the world intellectually.
  - 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
    > Also reminds me of the quote by Einstein, something about judging the ability of a fish to climb a tree. Almost certainly not by Einstein, for what it's worth. It was probably made up by motivational speaker Matthew Kelly or someone close to him, as the earliest verifiable occurrence of the quotation is in his 2004 book The Rhythm of Life: Living Every Day with Passion and Purpose [1]. [1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/
    - kumarvvr 8y ago
      Ohh ok. Great to learn this bit of trivia. Almost everywhere I saw this quote (ahem, reddit) it is almost always associated with Einstein.
      - abecedarius 8y ago
        I have a heuristic: when a genius is quoted saying something that could've come from a TED talk, they probably didn't say it. Sometimes they said something kind of similar that got "sanded down" by meme evolution.
    - krallja 8y ago
      I wonder if it’s derived from the feminist slogan “a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle”?
      - yantrams 8y ago
        Wow. Thanks for sharing that piece of trivia! Now I get what this song from 1981 - The fish needs a bike by Blurt - was referring to. I always thought it was a reference to some surrealist work or something :) https://www.discogs.com/Blurt-The-Fish-Needs-A-Bike/release/717696 https://www.discogs.com/Blurt-The-Fish-Needs-A-Bike/release/...
  - mlboss 8y ago
    It is from the other book by Feynman "What do you care what other people think?"
- yantrams 8y ago
  This works well for me too :) Specifically when I am going to sleep. Recently, I spent a couple of days working on "tight paving/tiles" problem from Knuth's Christmas Lecture ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxQw4CdxLr8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxQw4CdxLr8 ) and surprised myself when I managed to exhaustively enumerate all valid arrangements(around 40 I think) for some small configuration while lying on the bed at night, something that I never thought I could do without a pen and paper.
PretzelFisch 8y ago
Most of my hard work is done walking around the block or in a line at starbucks. Sitting at the desk things won't come into focus, and if they did someone would interrupt me.

Pica_soO 8y ago

We spend aeons hunting aka problem solving on the walk- i never understood why thinking was supposed to be a thing of motionlessness. I always suspected its the triumph of some educators deep down in history - who had a preference for a quite audience over one restless challenging the presented ideas.

kumarvvr 8y ago
I believe most work places ought to have large sprawling gardens and beautiful landscaping. It would make me more productive for sure. I am from India and most offices are in the middle of concrete jungles. Even in IT companies, there are no places to walk around. It's a shame. Looking at houses in the US, especially rural areas makes my mind orgasm. Such serene places.

blinkingled 8y ago

Good for you :) - for me, laying down with eyes shut is when I will have attractive solutions to hard problems! Happens sometimes standing in the shower but those all tend to be strategic ones unlike the tactical ones that get solved laying down. Crazy stuff!

kumarvvr 8y ago
Reminds me of a chapter from the book "Surely you must be joking Mr. Feynman" (as far as I remember). The chapter describes how Feynman came across how his colleague visualizes a task. IIRC Feynman does it visually (imagines something visual in his mind) and thus can do voice related activities while he is thinking, but his colleague does it by visualizing sound (he thinks tick-tock sounds in his mind), so can do visual tasks while he is thinking. Really fascinating how a human mind works. Also reminds me of the quote by Einstein, something about judging the ability of a fish to climb a tree. Everyone has a unique and effective way to navigate the world intellectually.
- 0xcde4c3db 8y ago
  > Also reminds me of the quote by Einstein, something about judging the ability of a fish to climb a tree. Almost certainly not by Einstein, for what it's worth. It was probably made up by motivational speaker Matthew Kelly or someone close to him, as the earliest verifiable occurrence of the quotation is in his 2004 book The Rhythm of Life: Living Every Day with Passion and Purpose [1]. [1] https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/ https://quoteinvestigator.com/2013/04/06/fish-climb/
  - kumarvvr 8y ago
    Ohh ok. Great to learn this bit of trivia. Almost everywhere I saw this quote (ahem, reddit) it is almost always associated with Einstein.
    - abecedarius 8y ago
      I have a heuristic: when a genius is quoted saying something that could've come from a TED talk, they probably didn't say it. Sometimes they said something kind of similar that got "sanded down" by meme evolution.
  - krallja 8y ago
    I wonder if it’s derived from the feminist slogan “a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle”?
    - yantrams 8y ago
      Wow. Thanks for sharing that piece of trivia! Now I get what this song from 1981 - The fish needs a bike by Blurt - was referring to. I always thought it was a reference to some surrealist work or something :) https://www.discogs.com/Blurt-The-Fish-Needs-A-Bike/release/717696 https://www.discogs.com/Blurt-The-Fish-Needs-A-Bike/release/...
- mlboss 8y ago
  It is from the other book by Feynman "What do you care what other people think?"
yantrams 8y ago
This works well for me too :) Specifically when I am going to sleep. Recently, I spent a couple of days working on "tight paving/tiles" problem from Knuth's Christmas Lecture ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxQw4CdxLr8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxQw4CdxLr8 ) and surprised myself when I managed to exhaustively enumerate all valid arrangements(around 40 I think) for some small configuration while lying on the bed at night, something that I never thought I could do without a pen and paper.

PretzelFisch 8y ago

Most of my hard work is done walking around the block or in a line at starbucks. Sitting at the desk things won't come into focus, and if they did someone would interrupt me.