It just has to be some repetitive physical activity that doesn't require intense thought or mental focus.<p>This can be chopping wood, taking a shower, walking, hiking, running, riding a bike, taking the dog for a walk, doing the dishes, etc.<p>The key is:<p>1. No particular mental focus<p>2. Some kind of physical movement<p>Your mind eventually starts to spin on autopilot, which is when it is able to mix things it can't while you're focused.
Cigarettes taught me this in college. Definitely the only positive impact smoking had on my life. I would be deep into solving a hard problem, and my nicotine brain would force me to go outside and smoke. I would very often come back inside and immediately get past a big hurdle I was struggling with.<p>It happened so much that when I quit smoking I made sure to continue the routine of getting up to go outside for a few minutes every two hours or so.
Somehow when I take a break to do something mindless, showering being especially high on the list, I often am able to step back from the problem and get some perspective. Yesterday I realized I was making the solution to complex by separating concerns and could combine them and greatly simplify the task. Five minutes in the shower yielded more forward progress than three long days of coding. It doesn't always help, but it does often enough that the daily shower is a productive time. More often it's just a mental code review and I catch and fix a bug, that works best if I go strait from coding to the shower with all the pieces of code fresh in my mind.
My experience has been the same and I think it is related to pressure on the problem. If I'm thinking to solve the problem on my code editor (or in work enviroment, for the case), I feel a lot of pressure in solving it right and (maybe) quick. I have to think about the problem well, I can't misstep.<p>In the other cases (shower), I can think about the problem without pressure and in a more free way. No one will care what I think or what I could propose about the problem in that situation, it's just my mind and me.
One of the advantages of the pomodoro method is that those 5 minute breaks allow me to stop thinking hard at the problem I'm working on. "Do I really need to solve that, in that way, or is the solution in that other direction?" That realization would come anyway but with a break every 25 minutes it comes much earlier and with less wasted time.<p><a href="https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique" rel="nofollow">https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique</a>
Am a big fan of this approach, I've slipped into this intense focus / distant reflection practice over the years without knowing why or how it worked.<p>It's wonderful to see it formalised and be able to communicate its value.<p>Naps, walks and gentle bike rides hold the answers to so many puzzles.
If I have a problem I need to solve, I think about it before I go to bed, and in the morning when I wake up I will often find it solved. I am pretty good at remembering my dreams, and on many of these occasions I will recall a dream of writing code related to the problem. I never remember the code itself, but often the structure of the problem will be much more apparent to me the next day.<p>Thinking actively about a problem is often all we have time for, but if you can let something stew and let your brain work on it, especially while working on other problems that might turn out to have some similar structure, the results can be quite satisfying.
This has worked so well for me in the past that back in my undergrad Analysis of Algorithms class, I would take extra showers just to work through particularly tricky problem set problems. It never failed.
I am pretty sure activities that have low brain requirements, be it the shower, running and the likes allow our brains to declutter, clean up all the mess of the constant stimuli we are assaulted with, especially from tech, but also noise if you're a fellow urban dweller.<p>On a similar note, I realised pen and paper -away from any computer, works wonders to organise my thoughts.
I wonder if the habit of listening to audio at faster than 1x speed has the side effect of muting the brain’s ability to do “background thinking.” I have noticed that when I take a day or two off from listening to a podcast or audiobook on my commute I have better focus and creativity — but the sample size is small and I do t know if this is merely coincidence.
I wonder if anybody have studies of whether the constant audio of music and audiobooks are a detriment to allowing the background processes to work in the mind?
I call it backprocess, it's fun how when you let go sometimes it comes with new conclusions and more clarity. It's also super comforting to have this inner "friend" do some of the thinking for yo.<p>The other thing I've noticed is how it's sometimes hard to concentrate on something else when you're going through a significant cognitive process (changing jobs, arguments, work hassles...), even if you are not actively thinking about it. As if your brain's cycles were taken by something else.<p>I've started to notice the pattern (hard to focus, distracted), attribute it to backprocess, realize that whatever triggered it must be significant, and expect to yield results at some point.
I've experienced this many times. I've been walking to and from work most days for the past several years, about 30 minutes each way. In the morning I listen to a podcast, but in the afternoon I just walk and let my mind wander. By the end of the day I'm usually too tired to continue in the focused mode of thinking, but sometimes I'm still able to discover some new insight while walking in the unfocused mode.
I've had some of the best ideas while in a sauna. Sure, I can't write stuff down, but a) I don't have my phone, no distractions, b) it's a prolonged period, so I have time to think it through, c) there's no physical exercise to distract me from all this.<p>The one downside is the fact that I can't write stuff down, so I oftentimes forget these revolutionary thoughts ;-)
Two things to share.<p>1) The book Your Brain at Work by David Rock does a great job explaining the brain and how to tilt it in your favor, more often.<p>2) I have solved more problems and had more great ideas 3+ miles into a run than any place else. There's something to be said for thinking less and not forcing the brain into a corner.
"Things I’ve found don’t work... Playing video games"<p>Opposite for me, I go for easy problems and then let my mind wander while I play a mindless game of Chess or HoMM3, then when I restart work one hour later the solution writes itself in 5 minutes.
I've solved plenty of problems when I swim. There's so many different "rooms" and frames of mind I can be in during that activity I think that's the main reason why it doesn't happen as often during weight training. While swimming I can come up with the solution in the shower, in the sauna, while doing my sets in the pool and while resting between sets. I switch between being completely immersed in water, almost deprived of sensory inputs, and being above water constantly.
I'd love to hear from John Carmack on this, it would be interesting to hear that he rarely has these 'shower' moments because he is always operating with great perspective.
My problem with shower thoughts is often I have too many and it's a struggle to hold on to them all until the end of the shower so I can actually write them down
For more information on how you can use this and other techniques to solve hard problems and get more (deep) work done. See Cal Newport's book Deep Work <a href="https://www.calnewport.com/books/deep-work/" rel="nofollow">https://www.calnewport.com/books/deep-work/</a>
For anyone having many good shower thoughts but easily forget them due to bad short-term memory: buy some water proof note taking papers. It's among the best things I've done for myself recently.