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If you are too busy, you will not think of the optimal solution to your intellectual problem. I don’t know about other people, but I often have the experience

If you are too busy, you will not think of the optimal solution to your intellectual problem. I don’t know about other people, but I often have the experience of banging away at some problem for a few hours, then going away and not thinking about it for a while then a simple resolution pops into my mind without much effort. Continuing to push hard when you aren’t getting any where on an intellectual puzzle isn’t always the best approach. And there are some fields of inquiry where deep concentration and deep knowledge is useful. For instance, rather than recreating all the knowledge by your own trial and error you can read and then make truly novel mistakes.

quickthrower2 4y ago
When programming, and stuck, down time rarely gives me a technical solution but very often a “why the hell ya even working on that!” kind of solution. Which is often better!
- Tostino 4y ago
  That's often the best kind of insight you can gain from having a little distance between you and the problem.
  - lanstin 4y ago
    As the Agile manifesto asks, maximize work not done.
laserlight 4y ago
> I often have the experience of banging away at some problem for a few hours, then going away and not thinking about it for a while then a simple resolution pops into my mind without much effort. This phenomenon is explained by focused vs. diffused modes of thinking, which I first heard about in Learning How to Learn MOOC [0]. There are many popular articles on the Web explaining the concept. [0] https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
- april_22 4y ago
  This looks like a real solid course, thanks for sharing!
fouric 4y ago
> If you are too busy, you will not think of the optimal solution to your intellectual problem. Yeah, lots of people have noticed that when their brain is not busy (taking walks, taking showers (/r/showerthoughts), in a hammock), they frequently come up with creative solutions to their problems - and at least one kind of leisure that GP mentioned (gaming) generally pretty strongly occupies your mind and prevents this exact kind of (uh, "diffuse"?) subconscious thinking.

quickthrower2 4y ago

When programming, and stuck, down time rarely gives me a technical solution but very often a “why the hell ya even working on that!” kind of solution. Which is often better!

Tostino 4y ago
That's often the best kind of insight you can gain from having a little distance between you and the problem.
- lanstin 4y ago
  As the Agile manifesto asks, maximize work not done.

laserlight 4y ago

> I often have the experience of banging away at some problem for a few hours, then going away and not thinking about it for a while then a simple resolution pops into my mind without much effort. This phenomenon is explained by focused vs. diffused modes of thinking, which I first heard about in Learning How to Learn MOOC [0]. There are many popular articles on the Web explaining the concept. [0] https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn

april_22 4y ago
This looks like a real solid course, thanks for sharing!

fouric 4y ago

> If you are too busy, you will not think of the optimal solution to your intellectual problem. Yeah, lots of people have noticed that when their brain is not busy (taking walks, taking showers (/r/showerthoughts), in a hammock), they frequently come up with creative solutions to their problems - and at least one kind of leisure that GP mentioned (gaming) generally pretty strongly occupies your mind and prevents this exact kind of (uh, "diffuse"?) subconscious thinking.