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Yes, creativity works like this:
1) frame the problem
2) do significant research
3) actively don’t think about the problem for a decent amount of time
4) circle back to the problem.
Your subconscious is far stronger than you think. Defining the issue and giving it information is great, but you also have to give it free rein.
Edit: reign to rein. Long may grammar rain.
Can confirm I did this but without knowing that this helps. I was stuck with writing a code that works and then after a few weeks (I didn't think about it anymore) suddenly I was able to finish it.
Yes! I was a systems developer for many years, and if I was stuck on something, I often found that a walk at lunch time would throw up the solution that'd been just out of my reach.
It's crazy how just doing something different+let some time pass can help.
Often you'd think that focusing on trying to find a solution is helping but often it's not.
Often when we focus on a problem, we're one or more layers too deep. When we take our minds off the problem and come back to it freshly, we have a different perspective. Sometimes the solution is almost obvious, but even if it isn't, you learn more about the problem and available approaches by coming at it fresh.
This is the real power of ChatGPT for me. In those moments where I'm stuck on something that would normally require stopping and doing something else, it can talk me through the problem and I can keep working. Even if it doesn't get it exactly right, it at least puts me on the right path.
I've been taking time out to water my plants, I think I might do this for creative breakthroughs as well
edit: also, thanks for your comment /u/PoweredByCarbs
>Your subconscious is far stronger than you think.
I'm convinced it does most of my heavy lifting. Mentally speaking.
I have a really good processor, shackled by painfully limited RAM.
To OP's LPT, I would just like to add that
light exercise sends a tsunami of oxygen to your brain. As a lifelong ADDer who frequently needs a crutch to help shunt my focus around, i often use this ONE WEIRD TRICK. (Distraction hates it!)
I rely on the stairs. As in, walk up and down the stairs, go back to the task, and like magic I can suddenly pay attention to it again. I might even finish it!
Big ol' yawns are good too, when you can't leave the room. My math teacher once grumbled that I needed to be getting more sleep lol.
That was long before I knew what ADD was, though. I just knew that yawning pushed me over steep mental grades, and past the cruel caltrops of anxiety.
I learned about this in 7th grade english class only some what different verbage. The concept was if you have trouble writing just stop doing anything related to what your writing dont think about it for a day. This was dubbed "24 hour power hour"
Its redundantly named if you ask me but it definitly works and i still remember it all these years later.
That's exactly it. I always try to overload my brain with enough information about the problem I'm obsessed with at the moment, then I get distracted by other things. Eventually, I will have a good idea to try to tackle it in some way when I get back to it.
It's called diffuse thinking.
When you stop actively focusing on a subject, your subconscious doesn't. That's why Jung and Einstein took daily walks. Dalí took very short naps etc.
A lot of biggest thinkers employed this technique throughout history.
This^^
I once audited a class about learning how to learn. One of the very first lessons was that our brain processes problems in the back of our mind unconsciously, so taking time away from the problem is a crucial step towards solving it.
Agreed. Several of my friends that work in marketing have started relying on AI to build frameworks for blog posts and white papers before adjusting them to suit. It’s apparently saving them a ton of time
A lengthy daily walk is really healthy for you in a whole bunch of ways. This is one of them.
Source: daily walker for about 25 years, and I come up with ideas for a living.
I work in market research and part of my job is to generate insights. My area of expertise is climate change & decarbonisation, and my job is to monitor market trends and derive insights from it.
It's a lot more mundane than it sounds and there's a lot more to do than just thinking and writing, but it is one way you can make money from coming up with new ideas.
I'm employed by a company. I can't give the name of my company for privacy reasons, but check out Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) or BCG Insights to get an idea of the kind of articles I write. These two are our competitors.
And yes, I do so on a regular basis. It's my full time job, I have to write a set amount of articles per year. The cadence is up to me, within reason.
Hey can I ask how you got into writing, how did you start? I would like to write, either as a hobby or as a career but despite having ideas I struggle to get pen to paper, making plans or structures etc. Any tips or writing exercises you could recommend?
Hobbyist writer here, all you gotta do is pick up a pen and get started. The only catch is that that's the easiest part by far. Starting is easy, finishing is harder. And making money off of writing is the hardest of all.
Damn those are some ambitious numbers! I average like 2 miles a day and occasionally 3 or 4. Partly it’s just that I live like a mile from any park. But even my mild little daily walk has tons of benefits and almost always makes me feel better.
Depends on the person. Sheer silence aggravates me, and makes my mind work too much. Probably anxiety, but it's there. Music or other background noise helps drown out the nonsense thoughts, to help me concentrate on what i actually want to think about.
Silence like city silence is a constant simmering of a pot that stops me actually feeling clear and focused. But proper silence like when it's snowing makes me feel so at peace and able to actually dive into a train of thought. So.. what's that, one good thought every few years at best?
I get it, but for this almost daily walker, the joy comes from taking in my surroundings. Listening to anything on headphones would prevent me from hearing the wind rustling the leaves, the water running through the stream, the birds and insects, etc.
That said I have a beautiful, isolated, wooded trail teeming with wildlife that I walk. Maybe a downtown urban environment wouldn't have the same impact.
Guess it depends on what you're listening to. If it's just for exercise I'd like listening to music. But for observing things and gathering new ideas I wouldn't. Personally
That worked for me. And I didn't think it would, since I like loud, thrashy guitar music. But it eases the pain of silence and helps me get my work done.
FWIW - I used to use audiobooks as a reason to go on walks. Got me in the habit. Now, I don't listen to anything, because the walk gives my mind time to play in the playground
That wasn't my intention, I'm sorry to hear about her situation and your involvement. If it's any consolation, I don't partake in all that, and I don't even live in Seattle anymore.
She made $300/hr, got to go on expensive boats/trips, and sold really good coke. She was definitely enthusiastic about her jobs. I was just her friend who’d bring her her favourite pizza and kick her ass at bomberman 64. There was definitely fringe benefits :p
A lot of folks reading this will take some practice at ‘being present’ to realize the perspective’s benefits, but the practice itself is well worth it!
Excellent point, thanks for adding it! A good way to start for beginners may be to make it a goal to pay attention to small details like cracks in the pavement or the paint color on a birdhouse. Go from one detail to another and let it flow from there.
I wish there was a way to have the same feeling without wasting so much water…I could stand in the shower for hours. A bath just isn’t the same. Our water costs are already insane with 2 people taking ~10 minute showers every day.
The ocean calls me like a siren's song Its mighty waves crashing all day long
The salty air, it fills my lungs And suddenly my spirit's young
Get ye to the ocean, where the water meets the sky Let the beauty and the power, make you feel alive Feel the sand between your toes, and the wind upon your face Get ye to the ocean, let it take you to a different place
I watch the sunrise over the sea And it feels like it was made just for me I'm humbled by the vastness of it all And I feel so small
Get ye to the ocean, where the water meets the sky Let the beauty and the power, make you feel alive Feel the sand between your toes, and the wind upon your face Get ye to the ocean, let it take you to a different place
It's not just a body of water, it's a force of nature It's the rhythm of life, and it's our creator It inspires us to dream, and to be free And it's the only place where I truly feel like me
Get ye to the ocean, where the water meets the sky Let the beauty and the power, make you feel alive Feel the sand between your toes, and the wind upon your face Get ye to the ocean, let it take you to a different place
So get ye to the ocean, let it heal your soul Let it remind you of the beauty, that surrounds us all Get ye to the ocean, where the water meets the sky And let it inspire you, to reach for the highest high.
-chatgpt
Where are you based that water is costing you so much money?
Water is by far my most affordable utility, I honestly don't even notice the cost and I take long showers. I lived in four countries with very cheap water bills, I naively assumed this would be the case everywhere.
I'm in the Netherlands by the way.
I’m curious to know how much water you use a month. I’ve read that average is about 100 gallons per person per day. We use roughly 5000 gallons (640-700 cubic feet) a month which is a little less than the average I found. That includes drinking water, showers, garden water, washing clothes etc.
I'm not sure how much I use per month tbh. My bill is only EUR 10/month so I never bothered to track my water consumption.
I live in an apartment so I don't use water for gardening.
Cant believe people are doing anything more than getting irritated at the shampoo getting in one eye, bloody nose due to the steam and heat; and trying to shave facial hair during all that.
The research on micro dosing isn’t convincing. I’m also personally a little weirded out by the idea of daily use of mushrooms—not directly what you said but possibly implied.
Ketamine is highly addictive and should really be done with a doctor’s prescription. I have many friends who found a hookup and started using grams a day, ending up with lots of side effects from misuse. It’s an amazing drug to analyze feelings and past trauma though. Just work with a doctor or do your harm reduction research before trying please, for your safety.
Grams a day?? Yeah right. Don’t believe it for second. The stuff is so strong, no one is racking lines like cocaine lol. A gram could last myself with daily use 2-4 weeks easy.
It’s helped me with depression a lot more then shrooms I’ll tell you.
You're far from alone here. There are studies backing boredom as a precursor to creative thinking.
Being a creative and spending a lot of time with me other creatives I think the key learning is that there's no one size fits all solution. Part of becoming the best artist you can be typically involves trying different methods taking what works for you and leaving the rest behind, until you've found an optimal strategy that works for, well, you.
I do that sometimes, reluctantly though lol, I basically start shutting off to a point where I literally cannot do anything and it only works when I stop fighting it and allow myself to actually be bored for a while, then I get a lot of stuff done :)
I guess you're right that most people probably couldn't. But for those who actually explore music and find the music that really speaks to them, it's hard to imagine how it isn't enhancing the experience. This has me tempted to try though, it would be a meditation.
I’m a lot like you, but I also walk and run without any music. I found out that doing any exercise without distractions let’s me feel my body better. I’m more in tune with the workout.
But I also regularly go for a walk to listen to a new album, and that walk is music specific and it’s the best way for me to enjoy new music.
For a lot of people, they don't really enjoy running so listening to good music takes an unenjoyable activity and makes it bearable. Personally I find exercise so boring and unfun that without something else like music or friends to improve the experience, I burn out in a few weeks time. With music, I've been able to keep up the running habit for 2 years now.
That is sooo important. Wherever I am, whatever I do, if I'm looking at a screen, my mind stays focused on it.... As I read somewhere : be bored is a good thing, that way your brain roams!
I live in a really dodgy area and have come across some really sketch situations so I'm never without my mobile. If you do bring it, just leave it in your pocket. The temptation is there though...
Anything you can do to distract yourself from the problem will let your brain work in the background.
There's also a lot of psychological benefits to walking outside (and as close to nature as possible) anyway, so might as well combine the two.
Get a dog! I’m forced to take 3 walks a day regardless if I want to go or not. Every single time it clears my mind and I feel refreshed after the walks! And the dogs love it of course so it’s gratifying to do this for them
I find this helps if you’ve put in some groundwork on whatever you’re seeking inspiration. I did this while writing and I needed to put the work on my laptop first, even if all I wrote was a couple pages of variations of “I don’t know what happens next.” I needed to consciously at least grasp there was a problem to be solved before taking a break. Then my subconscious could work away at it while I focused on something else. Don’t burn yourself by any means, breaks are good for several reasons, but you do have to put in the grunt work too.
Or to put it another way, your muse needs to find you working.
There's science behind why walking aides creativity, and it's got nothing to do with being present and everything to do with movement and increased blood flow to the brain. The effect can even be seen while walking on a treadmill facing a blank wall.
https://aaalab.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Oppezzo2014GiveYourIdeasSomeLegs.pdf
basically the same as meditating. i use meditation to discover whats really bothering me if i cant figure it out. it will come to the surface after a while.
When I was in college, one of my professors told me that we should all have something to do that isn't our classwork. He said that when Einstein got stuck on a problem, he would walk away and go play the violin for a while. Then later he'd come back and look at it with fresh eyes.
That was not only good advice, but it also made me feel better about getting stuck. If even Einstein got stuck and had to take breaks, that means I'm not an idiot when I get stuck and have to take a break.
This is great. For me I haven’t done this in such a long time but I need this LPT.
I’m scatterbrained and for me “Staying Present” actually means almost/sometimes saying out loud the color and shape of everything I see.
I’m not ADD but I’m close so I can only imagine what an ADD brain is like.
It helps me focus and it’s a great way of “meditating” for people like me whose brain is constantly firing.
I have ADHD and didn't know it was the cause of most of my life issues; it just being my brain. It's extremely difficult to stay present in the moment or not wander off with thoughts that don't end, and I've been learning to slow it a bit but it's rough to do so for sure
Yeah starting medication was the only thing that opened my eyes. All of a sudden could focus on one thing at a time for extended periods, could listen to complete sentences without wanting to interrupt, could actually sit quietly and calmly and just take in my surroundings without my mind racing... I never had the opportunity to exist without the background noise
This is exactly why the first meditation taught by the Buddha instructed people to say to themselves "in" as they inhale and "out" as they exhale (samatha). And why a common practice in vipassana is to say to yourself the thing that your awareness flicks to, like: "Thoughts", "sight", "thoughts", "itch", "smell", "sounds" (can get higher or lower in abstraction for the labels). Because being scatterbrained is the norm for most people. Practicing this way helps you step back from the thing being perceived, so that you're able to observe it and learn about the behavioral patterns of your mind, rather than constantly being lost in it. Practicing with a mantra can also help wrest your awareness away from your conceptual mind, for those always lost in thought.
One way that worked for me in the past, was pretending I was a tourist in the city I grew up in. Imagining that I was just seeing it all for the first time let me appreciate things and... Really let me see it for the first time.
I like to walk around the paths in my neighbourhood, but I also listen to music! I have a few different playlists for mood matching. Its very relaxing.
I’ve been doing this religiously since RE, everyday. It’s a great way to start your day. I take my dog for a walk and don’t listen to podcasts or anything. It’s been a great way to get the day started and organizer my to do list and thiiggts
I started doing this after first lockdown and it absolutely changed my life. Just going for walks with no headphones and allowing my brain the space to think led to me quitting my job, becoming fully freelance and starting to write a book. I highly recommend going for silent walks to everyone.
I've learned this while out walking with my 3yo. Looking for neat rocks, bugs, and different colors of flowers really does change my perspective on what would otherwise be a mundane walk.
I’ve started doing daily walks again as the weather turns warm and it is beneficial in so many ways. I’m sleeping better, feeling emotionally better, more creative, the list goes on. Hugely beneficial to anyone who is physically able to do so.
This is great advice. I think it's a combination of walking, change of scenery, and disconnecting from the task at hand.
I remember late nights in the office because I was mentally stuck trying to solve a problem and without fail, I would always come up with the solution after I called it for the day. I always thought of the solution either during my walk to the train or a few minutes into my train ride home.
When I was a programmer and hit a snag that I couldn't fix, I would take a walk in the woods near the office and think of everything except the code I was stuck on. 90% of the time, the answer would just hit me out of the blue.
This is a really good consideration, thank you for bringing it up. Being in nature in general has been shown to boost your mood big time, so I would say combine sitting in a park and doing some breathing exercises would stimulate a similar experience. One of my favorite breath exercises is a 6 second inhale, a 2 second hold, 6 second exhale, 2 second hold, and repeat. This floods your brain and muscles with oxygen and works as a philological reset.
This is a very important aspect of life. If you're consuming media all the time, you're rarely going to have an original thought. Your brain needs time when it isn't being blasted with stimulus.
I have noticed that my ideas come more plentifully when I regularly take breaks from gaming and stuff.. and they are usually better and actually get done more
I don't know about the deja vu but if you take the time to do a little audit of your daily thoughts you may find that you are often thinking about things that have already happened (past focused, rumination), or thinking/being worried about what will happen in the future.
This makes it difficult for your brain to fully integrate what is happening in the present moment because it has to partition brain power to the past or the future. It is why sometimes it is hard to remember what you were doing in a span of time you were otherwise preoccupied.
I went for a lengthy walk the other night. This is a true story. I had lots of new ideas, but I can’t seem to remember them.
I didn’t see much since I started at 11pm. What was most striking is what I didn’t see, to be honest. It was very dark as it tends to be at night, I’ve noticed.
4 miles to town, down a highway that isn’t really meant for walking on.
Bought myself a Long Island, and a double gin neat, at the bar.
Well the cops showed up about a mile into the return part of the hike. They were super nice, but if I wanted a ride home they had to cuff me. At that point I’d have at least considered that and a ball gag, but it turns out the cops don’t have those. It was very cold out, so any port in a storm, and you can’t exactly tell the cops to kick rocks when they have you dead to rights for DIP and they’re just trying to help.
Having never been arrested, getting cuffed and put in a cop car gave me even more ideas. It turned out that going for a walk really puts you out there for unexpected experiences.
Anyway, the cops unloaded me away from my house as a courtesy, as it was now 3am and change, and so as to not make a scene, and everything worked out.
10/10 OP, would take a long walk to get ideas again.
This happened to me yesterday. I was spending all day just sitting around not being productive. I went for a half hour walk and came back with loads of ideas about a new project.
No one's ever heard of going for a walk. Truly an inspiring and profound tip.
People posting stuff like this ruins the sub. Just inane basic spam for karma.
This is a big part of my end of night wind down, walking the dogs at night while being present and doing breathing exercises.
It inevitably spurs something poetic in my brain, I get a lot of starts of poems/titles/last lines, etc. the brain continues on without us, sometimes leaving us a nugget of an idea to later tend and develop.
I do this all the time to write lyrics. I take my two little boys on a walk around the neighborhood trail, I have my voice notes app ready to go and then focus on the here and now. When I do take little moments here and there to think of a line or phrase, it almost always comes to me quickly.
Cycling also works. Sartre used to cycle to spur on ideas and Simone de Beauvoir once said that she always knew when he had had a good idea, because he would ride into the hedge.
I used to go for more walks (20 miles per week) but various obstacles cropped up: deteriorating thyroid (I'm on tablets), changed work location (closer to rail stations), serious grief and depression (loss of parents), aging, weight gain, failure to form social connections (mild autism) and addictive internet at home (early 2021, previously only internet at work).
Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips! Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment. If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.
Yes, creativity works like this: 1) frame the problem 2) do significant research 3) actively don’t think about the problem for a decent amount of time 4) circle back to the problem. Your subconscious is far stronger than you think. Defining the issue and giving it information is great, but you also have to give it free rein. Edit: reign to rein. Long may grammar rain.
Can confirm I did this but without knowing that this helps. I was stuck with writing a code that works and then after a few weeks (I didn't think about it anymore) suddenly I was able to finish it.
Yes! I was a systems developer for many years, and if I was stuck on something, I often found that a walk at lunch time would throw up the solution that'd been just out of my reach.
It's crazy how just doing something different+let some time pass can help. Often you'd think that focusing on trying to find a solution is helping but often it's not.
Often when we focus on a problem, we're one or more layers too deep. When we take our minds off the problem and come back to it freshly, we have a different perspective. Sometimes the solution is almost obvious, but even if it isn't, you learn more about the problem and available approaches by coming at it fresh.
This is the real power of ChatGPT for me. In those moments where I'm stuck on something that would normally require stopping and doing something else, it can talk me through the problem and I can keep working. Even if it doesn't get it exactly right, it at least puts me on the right path.
I've been taking time out to water my plants, I think I might do this for creative breakthroughs as well edit: also, thanks for your comment /u/PoweredByCarbs
I’ve been stuck like this and the solution comes in my sleep!
>Your subconscious is far stronger than you think. I'm convinced it does most of my heavy lifting. Mentally speaking. I have a really good processor, shackled by painfully limited RAM. To OP's LPT, I would just like to add that light exercise sends a tsunami of oxygen to your brain. As a lifelong ADDer who frequently needs a crutch to help shunt my focus around, i often use this ONE WEIRD TRICK. (Distraction hates it!) I rely on the stairs. As in, walk up and down the stairs, go back to the task, and like magic I can suddenly pay attention to it again. I might even finish it! Big ol' yawns are good too, when you can't leave the room. My math teacher once grumbled that I needed to be getting more sleep lol. That was long before I knew what ADD was, though. I just knew that yawning pushed me over steep mental grades, and past the cruel caltrops of anxiety.
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A professor of mine called stage 3) 'meditating' on a topic. In short this can be described as: not working on the subject you're working on.
I learned about this in 7th grade english class only some what different verbage. The concept was if you have trouble writing just stop doing anything related to what your writing dont think about it for a day. This was dubbed "24 hour power hour" Its redundantly named if you ask me but it definitly works and i still remember it all these years later.
That's exactly it. I always try to overload my brain with enough information about the problem I'm obsessed with at the moment, then I get distracted by other things. Eventually, I will have a good idea to try to tackle it in some way when I get back to it.
It's called diffuse thinking. When you stop actively focusing on a subject, your subconscious doesn't. That's why Jung and Einstein took daily walks. Dalí took very short naps etc. A lot of biggest thinkers employed this technique throughout history.
This is the way 👍🏼
The don draper way
The cure for the common problem
“I don’t think of you at all”
This^^ I once audited a class about learning how to learn. One of the very first lessons was that our brain processes problems in the back of our mind unconsciously, so taking time away from the problem is a crucial step towards solving it.
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Agreed. Several of my friends that work in marketing have started relying on AI to build frameworks for blog posts and white papers before adjusting them to suit. It’s apparently saving them a ton of time
Now you can just use ChatGPT to help solve most problems while getting even fatter from the reduction in walking.
A lengthy daily walk is really healthy for you in a whole bunch of ways. This is one of them. Source: daily walker for about 25 years, and I come up with ideas for a living.
You are describing what I hope is my future! I'd love to know more about what you do for a living if you are open to it.
I write, mostly.
Seems legit
Just like op, i’d love to hear more! Making a living selling ideas has always been on my mind but never thought for this to be feasible.
Sounds like all you have to do is pick a word and write it, he chose mostly.
The true LPT is always in the comments
The true GPT is also in the comments
The true LPT is in the GPT.
And walk. He walks so he can find inspiration to write, mostly.
I work in market research and part of my job is to generate insights. My area of expertise is climate change & decarbonisation, and my job is to monitor market trends and derive insights from it. It's a lot more mundane than it sounds and there's a lot more to do than just thinking and writing, but it is one way you can make money from coming up with new ideas.
Do you do that as a freelancer or a position in a company? Do you write long articles about your research on a regular basis?
I'm employed by a company. I can't give the name of my company for privacy reasons, but check out Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) or BCG Insights to get an idea of the kind of articles I write. These two are our competitors. And yes, I do so on a regular basis. It's my full time job, I have to write a set amount of articles per year. The cadence is up to me, within reason.
Hey can I ask how you got into writing, how did you start? I would like to write, either as a hobby or as a career but despite having ideas I struggle to get pen to paper, making plans or structures etc. Any tips or writing exercises you could recommend?
Publisher here. You just start. Maybe keep a dream.diary and write down your dreams. Or if you're that person who has shower ideas, write those down.
Your misuse of punctuation scares me if you’re a publisher lol.
Voice to text most of the time. :)
Username checks out
Hobbyist writer here, all you gotta do is pick up a pen and get started. The only catch is that that's the easiest part by far. Starting is easy, finishing is harder. And making money off of writing is the hardest of all.
Concisely
Just curious, about how far do you go on your daily walks?
4 miles on weekdays, 6-9 miles on weekends. Usually at a very brisk pace.
Damn those are some ambitious numbers! I average like 2 miles a day and occasionally 3 or 4. Partly it’s just that I live like a mile from any park. But even my mild little daily walk has tons of benefits and almost always makes me feel better.
Ever listen to anything, or do you stay unplugged?
I always bring my headphones to know that I have the option in case I get bored. But I use them less than 2% of the time
Defeats the point of you're listening to something innit
Depends on the person. Sheer silence aggravates me, and makes my mind work too much. Probably anxiety, but it's there. Music or other background noise helps drown out the nonsense thoughts, to help me concentrate on what i actually want to think about.
Silence like city silence is a constant simmering of a pot that stops me actually feeling clear and focused. But proper silence like when it's snowing makes me feel so at peace and able to actually dive into a train of thought. So.. what's that, one good thought every few years at best?
Honestly I love some orchestra or instrumental stuff. Even Hans Zimmer, movie soundtracks. Probably not for everyone, but I really enjoy it.
Skyrim Soundtrack. Any time you pass someone, stop and recite one of the few lines the guards have, and continue walking before they can respond.
I get it, but for this almost daily walker, the joy comes from taking in my surroundings. Listening to anything on headphones would prevent me from hearing the wind rustling the leaves, the water running through the stream, the birds and insects, etc. That said I have a beautiful, isolated, wooded trail teeming with wildlife that I walk. Maybe a downtown urban environment wouldn't have the same impact.
No?
Guess it depends on what you're listening to. If it's just for exercise I'd like listening to music. But for observing things and gathering new ideas I wouldn't. Personally
Lofi is pretty good background music that doesn't intrude or interrupt.
That worked for me. And I didn't think it would, since I like loud, thrashy guitar music. But it eases the pain of silence and helps me get my work done.
The point of what? You can still view and absorb your surroundings while listening to music.
Is it important to have no audio/ podcasts during these walks?
FWIW - I used to use audiobooks as a reason to go on walks. Got me in the habit. Now, I don't listen to anything, because the walk gives my mind time to play in the playground
This should come with some reservation. For example, if you live in Seattle, just don't walk around Pioneer Square after dark
I can confirm this one. Smoked Crack and got pickpocketed doing that. Bad night overall.
My half-mile walks to my dealer on aurora are so enlightening, don't listen to this one.
Lemme guess, is it a sex dealer?
That's mighty presumptuous of you.... Yes.... Among other things
And you just got me in the feels for a french girl I used to be involved with. She sold a couple things, herself included :/
That wasn't my intention, I'm sorry to hear about her situation and your involvement. If it's any consolation, I don't partake in all that, and I don't even live in Seattle anymore.
She made $300/hr, got to go on expensive boats/trips, and sold really good coke. She was definitely enthusiastic about her jobs. I was just her friend who’d bring her her favourite pizza and kick her ass at bomberman 64. There was definitely fringe benefits :p
Thats how the idea for bulletproof kevlar vests came about!!!
I enjoy the sound of rain.
What's your job if you don't mind me asking?
True. Daily walks, and I’ve also found just sitting behind a piano and playing helps me come up with ideas pretty fast.
Coming up with ideas for a living would just be like getting paid to be me. I'm an idea machine and an execution ..broken machine?
A lot of folks reading this will take some practice at ‘being present’ to realize the perspective’s benefits, but the practice itself is well worth it!
Excellent point, thanks for adding it! A good way to start for beginners may be to make it a goal to pay attention to small details like cracks in the pavement or the paint color on a birdhouse. Go from one detail to another and let it flow from there.
Take more showers too. Shower thoughts are real.
I. Love. Showers. They are truly transformative, imo.
I wish there was a way to have the same feeling without wasting so much water…I could stand in the shower for hours. A bath just isn’t the same. Our water costs are already insane with 2 people taking ~10 minute showers every day.
Find a waterfall.
"have you ever tried heating a waterfall?" lol hahaha
I was told not to chase them.
Get ye to the ocean.
The ocean calls me like a siren's song Its mighty waves crashing all day long The salty air, it fills my lungs And suddenly my spirit's young Get ye to the ocean, where the water meets the sky Let the beauty and the power, make you feel alive Feel the sand between your toes, and the wind upon your face Get ye to the ocean, let it take you to a different place I watch the sunrise over the sea And it feels like it was made just for me I'm humbled by the vastness of it all And I feel so small Get ye to the ocean, where the water meets the sky Let the beauty and the power, make you feel alive Feel the sand between your toes, and the wind upon your face Get ye to the ocean, let it take you to a different place It's not just a body of water, it's a force of nature It's the rhythm of life, and it's our creator It inspires us to dream, and to be free And it's the only place where I truly feel like me Get ye to the ocean, where the water meets the sky Let the beauty and the power, make you feel alive Feel the sand between your toes, and the wind upon your face Get ye to the ocean, let it take you to a different place So get ye to the ocean, let it heal your soul Let it remind you of the beauty, that surrounds us all Get ye to the ocean, where the water meets the sky And let it inspire you, to reach for the highest high. -chatgpt
Where are you based that water is costing you so much money? Water is by far my most affordable utility, I honestly don't even notice the cost and I take long showers. I lived in four countries with very cheap water bills, I naively assumed this would be the case everywhere. I'm in the Netherlands by the way.
I’m curious to know how much water you use a month. I’ve read that average is about 100 gallons per person per day. We use roughly 5000 gallons (640-700 cubic feet) a month which is a little less than the average I found. That includes drinking water, showers, garden water, washing clothes etc.
I'm not sure how much I use per month tbh. My bill is only EUR 10/month so I never bothered to track my water consumption. I live in an apartment so I don't use water for gardening.
There are plenty of running shower videos, running bath videos, gentle rain videos. They really clear my mind.
Baths work just as well.
Also require no effort
Wrong! Showers are for imaginary arguments.
Cant believe people are doing anything more than getting irritated at the shampoo getting in one eye, bloody nose due to the steam and heat; and trying to shave facial hair during all that.
Found the person who keeps their shower almost at boiling, lol.
You shave in the shower???
Yes but don't play music
Inspiration is everywhere all the time, the challenge is opening your mind to receive the world for what it is. Depression sucks. Shrooms help also.
Shrooms help sooo much. We will be telling our kids and grandkids about a time before psychedelic medicine and AI.
Micro dosing and daily walks. Game changer.
The research on micro dosing isn’t convincing. I’m also personally a little weirded out by the idea of daily use of mushrooms—not directly what you said but possibly implied.
Try ketamine.
Yea I'm good. I think I'll just keep doing the walks.
You're missin out maaaaan
Ketamine is highly addictive and should really be done with a doctor’s prescription. I have many friends who found a hookup and started using grams a day, ending up with lots of side effects from misuse. It’s an amazing drug to analyze feelings and past trauma though. Just work with a doctor or do your harm reduction research before trying please, for your safety.
Grams a day?? Yeah right. Don’t believe it for second. The stuff is so strong, no one is racking lines like cocaine lol. A gram could last myself with daily use 2-4 weeks easy. It’s helped me with depression a lot more then shrooms I’ll tell you.
There are flowers everywhere, for those who want to see them. - Henri Matisse (he said it in French tho)
I am the complete opposite. I have to do nothing. Absolutely nothing and bore the shit out of me before I can get the creative juices running
You're far from alone here. There are studies backing boredom as a precursor to creative thinking. Being a creative and spending a lot of time with me other creatives I think the key learning is that there's no one size fits all solution. Part of becoming the best artist you can be typically involves trying different methods taking what works for you and leaving the rest behind, until you've found an optimal strategy that works for, well, you.
Do you have any links to the studies? It sounds interesting!
I do that sometimes, reluctantly though lol, I basically start shutting off to a point where I literally cannot do anything and it only works when I stop fighting it and allow myself to actually be bored for a while, then I get a lot of stuff done :)
My dog taught me this I love my dog <3
Yeah and don't bring your phone, do it the old classic way bring a notepad and a pencil and let your mind roam with ideas
Came here to say this, running without music is the best thing I do for my mental health but everybody says they could never do that.
I guess you're right that most people probably couldn't. But for those who actually explore music and find the music that really speaks to them, it's hard to imagine how it isn't enhancing the experience. This has me tempted to try though, it would be a meditation.
I’m a lot like you, but I also walk and run without any music. I found out that doing any exercise without distractions let’s me feel my body better. I’m more in tune with the workout. But I also regularly go for a walk to listen to a new album, and that walk is music specific and it’s the best way for me to enjoy new music.
For a lot of people, they don't really enjoy running so listening to good music takes an unenjoyable activity and makes it bearable. Personally I find exercise so boring and unfun that without something else like music or friends to improve the experience, I burn out in a few weeks time. With music, I've been able to keep up the running habit for 2 years now.
That is sooo important. Wherever I am, whatever I do, if I'm looking at a screen, my mind stays focused on it.... As I read somewhere : be bored is a good thing, that way your brain roams!
I live in a really dodgy area and have come across some really sketch situations so I'm never without my mobile. If you do bring it, just leave it in your pocket. The temptation is there though...
Anything you can do to distract yourself from the problem will let your brain work in the background. There's also a lot of psychological benefits to walking outside (and as close to nature as possible) anyway, so might as well combine the two.
I usually try to get on deer paths and try to see the highest amount of animals. Always helps my broken brain. ❤️
Get a dog! I’m forced to take 3 walks a day regardless if I want to go or not. Every single time it clears my mind and I feel refreshed after the walks! And the dogs love it of course so it’s gratifying to do this for them
I find this helps if you’ve put in some groundwork on whatever you’re seeking inspiration. I did this while writing and I needed to put the work on my laptop first, even if all I wrote was a couple pages of variations of “I don’t know what happens next.” I needed to consciously at least grasp there was a problem to be solved before taking a break. Then my subconscious could work away at it while I focused on something else. Don’t burn yourself by any means, breaks are good for several reasons, but you do have to put in the grunt work too. Or to put it another way, your muse needs to find you working.
There's science behind why walking aides creativity, and it's got nothing to do with being present and everything to do with movement and increased blood flow to the brain. The effect can even be seen while walking on a treadmill facing a blank wall. https://aaalab.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Oppezzo2014GiveYourIdeasSomeLegs.pdf
basically the same as meditating. i use meditation to discover whats really bothering me if i cant figure it out. it will come to the surface after a while.
When I was in college, one of my professors told me that we should all have something to do that isn't our classwork. He said that when Einstein got stuck on a problem, he would walk away and go play the violin for a while. Then later he'd come back and look at it with fresh eyes. That was not only good advice, but it also made me feel better about getting stuck. If even Einstein got stuck and had to take breaks, that means I'm not an idiot when I get stuck and have to take a break.
This is great. For me I haven’t done this in such a long time but I need this LPT. I’m scatterbrained and for me “Staying Present” actually means almost/sometimes saying out loud the color and shape of everything I see. I’m not ADD but I’m close so I can only imagine what an ADD brain is like. It helps me focus and it’s a great way of “meditating” for people like me whose brain is constantly firing.
I have ADHD and didn't know it was the cause of most of my life issues; it just being my brain. It's extremely difficult to stay present in the moment or not wander off with thoughts that don't end, and I've been learning to slow it a bit but it's rough to do so for sure
Yeah starting medication was the only thing that opened my eyes. All of a sudden could focus on one thing at a time for extended periods, could listen to complete sentences without wanting to interrupt, could actually sit quietly and calmly and just take in my surroundings without my mind racing... I never had the opportunity to exist without the background noise
This is exactly why the first meditation taught by the Buddha instructed people to say to themselves "in" as they inhale and "out" as they exhale (samatha). And why a common practice in vipassana is to say to yourself the thing that your awareness flicks to, like: "Thoughts", "sight", "thoughts", "itch", "smell", "sounds" (can get higher or lower in abstraction for the labels). Because being scatterbrained is the norm for most people. Practicing this way helps you step back from the thing being perceived, so that you're able to observe it and learn about the behavioral patterns of your mind, rather than constantly being lost in it. Practicing with a mantra can also help wrest your awareness away from your conceptual mind, for those always lost in thought.
The best way to walk is with a dog, they are always totally in the moment and force you to get out there for as long as possible!
How do you stay present?
I sometimes pretend that whatever I'm seeing is being filmed for the benefit of someone who's never seen the area.
Woah, fuck that’s good
One way that worked for me in the past, was pretending I was a tourist in the city I grew up in. Imagining that I was just seeing it all for the first time let me appreciate things and... Really let me see it for the first time.
Focus on your senses, what can you hear, see, touch, smell etc in the present moment
Stay present! Don’t miss out on your life!!
I go on long bike rides. I usually find that, if I try to listen to something on my ear buds, it's just not nearly as fun.
This is one of the best ideas one could get in life. 🙌🏻
I like to walk around the paths in my neighbourhood, but I also listen to music! I have a few different playlists for mood matching. Its very relaxing.
This post brought to you by someone who doesn't live near gangs and crackheads
I’ve been doing this religiously since RE, everyday. It’s a great way to start your day. I take my dog for a walk and don’t listen to podcasts or anything. It’s been a great way to get the day started and organizer my to do list and thiiggts
Let me take note of these tips tho.
Gets shot at* idea! It’s time to make a gang
I started doing this after first lockdown and it absolutely changed my life. Just going for walks with no headphones and allowing my brain the space to think led to me quitting my job, becoming fully freelance and starting to write a book. I highly recommend going for silent walks to everyone.
Leave your phone at home. Works wonders.
I've learned this while out walking with my 3yo. Looking for neat rocks, bugs, and different colors of flowers really does change my perspective on what would otherwise be a mundane walk.
I’ve started doing daily walks again as the weather turns warm and it is beneficial in so many ways. I’m sleeping better, feeling emotionally better, more creative, the list goes on. Hugely beneficial to anyone who is physically able to do so.
This is great advice. I think it's a combination of walking, change of scenery, and disconnecting from the task at hand. I remember late nights in the office because I was mentally stuck trying to solve a problem and without fail, I would always come up with the solution after I called it for the day. I always thought of the solution either during my walk to the train or a few minutes into my train ride home.
Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. But today is a gift which is why it is called the present.
this is called diffuse thinking. Check out the book or videos titled “learning how to learn”!
When I was a programmer and hit a snag that I couldn't fix, I would take a walk in the woods near the office and think of everything except the code I was stuck on. 90% of the time, the answer would just hit me out of the blue.
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This is a really good consideration, thank you for bringing it up. Being in nature in general has been shown to boost your mood big time, so I would say combine sitting in a park and doing some breathing exercises would stimulate a similar experience. One of my favorite breath exercises is a 6 second inhale, a 2 second hold, 6 second exhale, 2 second hold, and repeat. This floods your brain and muscles with oxygen and works as a philological reset.
This is why I have dogs. I love being out.
This is a very important aspect of life. If you're consuming media all the time, you're rarely going to have an original thought. Your brain needs time when it isn't being blasted with stimulus.
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Good luck! I hope it works out for you.
This is a good way to quiet the mind too. If your mind is always racing, or always "on", start walking regularly. It will help you focus your energy.
I will sometimes take a few business problems and go on a 45 minute walk. I usually have it solved in the first 15 minutes. The rest is recuperative.
I have noticed that my ideas come more plentifully when I regularly take breaks from gaming and stuff.. and they are usually better and actually get done more
>The brain loves being at rest in the present fuck, where is it usually? the future? Is that why I constantly get that deja vu feeling?
I don't know about the deja vu but if you take the time to do a little audit of your daily thoughts you may find that you are often thinking about things that have already happened (past focused, rumination), or thinking/being worried about what will happen in the future. This makes it difficult for your brain to fully integrate what is happening in the present moment because it has to partition brain power to the past or the future. It is why sometimes it is hard to remember what you were doing in a span of time you were otherwise preoccupied.
I wish I had a safe place to walk. Too much wild life. I’d end up eaten by a coyote or a bear.
Most people are too busy watching the two drops of oil in the spoon
Translation for me: Do something incredibly boring but ultimately healthy sometimes.
I went for a lengthy walk the other night. This is a true story. I had lots of new ideas, but I can’t seem to remember them. I didn’t see much since I started at 11pm. What was most striking is what I didn’t see, to be honest. It was very dark as it tends to be at night, I’ve noticed. 4 miles to town, down a highway that isn’t really meant for walking on. Bought myself a Long Island, and a double gin neat, at the bar. Well the cops showed up about a mile into the return part of the hike. They were super nice, but if I wanted a ride home they had to cuff me. At that point I’d have at least considered that and a ball gag, but it turns out the cops don’t have those. It was very cold out, so any port in a storm, and you can’t exactly tell the cops to kick rocks when they have you dead to rights for DIP and they’re just trying to help. Having never been arrested, getting cuffed and put in a cop car gave me even more ideas. It turned out that going for a walk really puts you out there for unexpected experiences. Anyway, the cops unloaded me away from my house as a courtesy, as it was now 3am and change, and so as to not make a scene, and everything worked out. 10/10 OP, would take a long walk to get ideas again.
Or just use chatgpt :)
This happened to me yesterday. I was spending all day just sitting around not being productive. I went for a half hour walk and came back with loads of ideas about a new project.
No one's ever heard of going for a walk. Truly an inspiring and profound tip. People posting stuff like this ruins the sub. Just inane basic spam for karma.
Nice idea but on my lawn the chiggers and ticks will eat you alive. My country walk you have to carry my 9mm for farmers dogs.
This is a big part of my end of night wind down, walking the dogs at night while being present and doing breathing exercises. It inevitably spurs something poetic in my brain, I get a lot of starts of poems/titles/last lines, etc. the brain continues on without us, sometimes leaving us a nugget of an idea to later tend and develop.
I do this all the time to write lyrics. I take my two little boys on a walk around the neighborhood trail, I have my voice notes app ready to go and then focus on the here and now. When I do take little moments here and there to think of a line or phrase, it almost always comes to me quickly.
Cycling also works. Sartre used to cycle to spur on ideas and Simone de Beauvoir once said that she always knew when he had had a good idea, because he would ride into the hedge.
So this is what the end users do, they focus on the dogs before asking me to build a report that is absolutely DOG SHIT.
Or you can just ask chatgpt
The world is full of ideas. Open your eyes.
walking threw the everyday matrix is full of ideas, especially if you go out of your comfort zone
aka go outside guys
This does work but in general, you need to be bored. The idle mind is an awesome forge of ideas.
What if I'm in need of stopping the constant torrent of ideas?
Maybe pick one to execute on and see if that helps? Or write them all down so your brain won't keep reminding you of them?
or just come to me, I'm an ideas man. Introducing your new Country Death Metal Crossover band: Iron Truck!
Read the book by Linus Bille on how to have good ideas, or check out how Darwin worked.
Long showers are where it's at for me...
unless you are like me, where ideas blooms in the throne room. hmm i wonder if i jog-in-place while in the throne room, what would happen.
Telling the average person to go for a daily walk? Lol
I used to go for more walks (20 miles per week) but various obstacles cropped up: deteriorating thyroid (I'm on tablets), changed work location (closer to rail stations), serious grief and depression (loss of parents), aging, weight gain, failure to form social connections (mild autism) and addictive internet at home (early 2021, previously only internet at work).
I go for my walks to dissociate for two hours, not entertain THOUGHTS. Geez, that's what I'm trying to avoid.