I do highly recommend getting the kids involved in the various Lego competitions, it forces problem solving and creativity.
I can second that long walks work great for daydreaming but they too feel painfully boring before the daydreaming kicks in.
Lego still sells products which are just big boxes of parts, as well as things between (the 3-in-1 sets that have several different models). I’m not sure why kids are missing out on this—some kids do enjoy it, and some kids don’t. But Lego caters actively to both.
Also showers are very good for the right state of mind.
The part of your brain that's like "you should be fixing the leaky faucet right now" will be quelled when you're in the shower because, I guess aside from consuming audio media, there really isn't much else you can do.
Same thing happens for me, and that’s my working theory.
A false framework producing false explanations does not falsify frameworks in general.
The theory of evolution was conceived way after the middle ages, so that seems beside the point.
- Best: walks, running, walking in circles, walking in circles talking over the phone (1:1 planning), walking in circles talking out loud to myself
- Good: showers, daydreaming in place, daydreaming on trips where I'm not driving, "pair program" white boarding with one other (exceptional) person
- Okay: white boarding by myself, trying to put ideas to pen and paper by myself, meetings with the right people in a physical space
- Bad: at the computer, on the phone, walking or running to podcasts, walking or running to the wrong type of music, video conference meetings, and generally all other meetings
- What are you even doing: YouTube, Netflix, or podcasts on in the background at any level
Podcasts kill this mode for me, so you can't have the brain thinking about other people's thoughts or words.
Playing a video game doesn't work, so I think your spatial thinking has to be free too.
It's as if distracting the brain's non-verbal/spatial modes or burning some amount of calories from those centers gives the "thinking" parts of the brain some "alone time". That's an incredibly non-scientific and unserious hypothesis though.
Walking in some easy nature is great too, somehow relaxes subconsciousness so I end up with few todos marked in my phone after each such walk. When I occasionally smoke weed at such walks somehow this feed becomes a firehose and sometimes struggle to note it all. Nature is amazing in any form, recharging, healing and somehow at lowest level that connection just feels right.
And sure, I booked like 6 hours that day with no concrete immediate result, but 2-3 days like that a year or two ago shaped how applications function in the company today and it does so effectively.
Another thought the article provokes is the idea of mindfullnes and living in the moment. Sometimes it is easy to open up the phone and just escape. But in those situations, it can be quite interesting to just be in the moment, meet people and see where it goes. If you're in a shitty situation -- like a train stopping in the middle of nothing and dropping all passengers at a train station too short for the train -- it can be interesting to interact with and observe people. It can teach how all of us have very similar basic problems, no matter how we look or who we are. And I'm saying that as an introvert -- sometimes the anonymity of never meeting people again is a good thing.
This is a really good observation.
Lately, knitting has been scratching this itch for me.
One of the things I appreciate about knitting is how accommodating it is as a hobby. If I want to really focus on knitting, I can choose a project that uses a lot of complex stitches, cables, etc. If I just want to zone out and feel like I'm making progress, I can choose a simpler pattern that just does the same stitches over and over.
If I want to make something large and intricate, I can pick a pattern that uses multiple colors. But if I want something portable, I can pick a pattern that just needs a single ball of yarn and a single circular needle.
https://jaisenmathai.com/articles/latent-product-development...
those bricks helped me out of burnout towards the end of my studies (14 exams in 3 months…yes, you can do that in Italy)
now I keep new unopened boxes (+ my childhood stash) ready for future dark days
The two ways I get to strategic reflection are really:
- Doing lego. I find thhat doing lego is actually really good at helping me consolidate thoughts and ideas. It takes up just enough mental energy to not get bored, but it lets me think about things with an unstressed mind.
- Walks. The other way to generate new perspectives is to take a walk at lunch though non-interesting territory. I really do not find walks in a busy downtown to be relaxing, too much activity intruding on me to actually be low stress, but if it is in a forest or even just a long parkway that works for me.
The absolute worst way to come up with new ideas is in front of my computer trying to work. Good for doing the next obvious thing, but really hard to think outside of the box.
You really do need a mix of the two, otherwise you are either doing the obvious or never actually doing anything.