4 ms·
I find that too - much of my best thinking in the past has come to me during the walk to the office or back home again. I once took to carrying a dictation mach
by mhw 14y ago
I find that too - much of my best thinking in the past has come to me during the walk to the office or back home again. I once took to carrying a dictation machine so I could capture these thoughts because I used to find that the process of arriving at the office, making a coffee, booting up and logging on used to distract me and I'd forget what I'd thought of while walking.
My theory about thinking and walking is that it gets the blood flowing round the brain more than just sitting at a desk does. I think that was the thinking behind having table tennis tables in offices as well, to get the blood moving around. There's also something about the action of walking that seems to let the mind wander off as well though...
- TillE 14y agoI suspect it's a mental context switch more than anything physiological. For example, I'm pretty bad at creative tasks when at a keyboard (this was also true in pre-internet times, so it's not a matter of distractions), but sit me down with a pencil and paper and the juices start to flow. It just creates a different state of mind.
- icebraining 14y agoFor me, often just looking out of the window (we have a nice view on our office) helps a lot.
- agumonkey 14y agoI combine both by walking near a blackboard. I tried to replace pencil & paper with minimalist emacs buffer but .. paper is non linear, just like thought trails so it's a better fit for now.
- politician 14y agoThere actually is something to the idea of getting blood flowing to the different parts of your brain -- there's also a study showing a correlation between the nostril you're currently breathing out of right now and which nervous system is dominant (you have two). There's a breathing meditation exercise where you try to alternate nostrils -- it's a bit trippy once all of that O2 starts hitting both sides of your head at once.