If it’s halfway through the day, going for a walk around the block (importantly, without just going on my phone) or going for a swim will often let me realize something I missed that proves to be the key when I get back to my desk. If none of this works, I’ve found that one of the best ways to move forward with a problem is to get away from the problem. My usual next steps involve writing things down, trying some code, searching for similar problems, rubber-ducking, or asking a coworker. Sometimes you look at a problem and something comes to you, while other times, you draw a blank (and occasionally this is where the nagging imposter syndrome thoughts sneak out of their grungy caves). Sometimes after investigating a problem, thinking through the edge cases, and trying an attempt or two, the right solution isn’t immediately there. It’s usually not the same problem, so it usually needs a new solution. There’s a certain kind of cruel balance to the work if it was exactly the same problem we were solving before, we’d just copy and paste what we did there. Working in software has graciously given me the opportunity to often have no immediate idea how to solve the problem in front of me. I started paying more attention to this balance around the time when I was learning to program, and I’ve been able to use these two modes when learning how to program, learning in an academic environment, and solving problems that come up in my daily work. In a recent New Yorker article, The Myth and Magic of Generating New Ideas, Dan Rockmore goes into detail about working as a mathematician and coming up with new insights while jogging or lifting weights after focusing hard on the problem: “it’s just a feeling of being free, of forgetting for a moment that we are bound by gravity and logic and convention, of letting the magic happen.” Letting the magic happen in practice Thomas Edison would also reportedly do the same with a ball bearing in his hand instead, harnessing the amorphous diffuse mode to come up with new ideas. As soon as he entered proper sleep, his grip would relax and the key would fall to the plate, making enough noise to wake him and call him back to his work, the new ideas fresh in his head. As he drifted off, his mind would wander, forming new thoughts. In the course, one of the examples of consciously switching between the two modes to develop new ideas is the nap strategy employed by Salvadore Dali, where after a long period of focused work on a project, he would retire for a brief nap while holding a key in one hand above a plate. The focused mode is for filling your mind with information, and the diffuse mode is great at processing that information, forming connections between existing concepts, and developing new ideas. One of my biggest takeaways from the course was the balance between actively focusing and letting your mind wander, or the focused and diffuse modes of thinking. I’ve found it to be a tremendous resource for building better study habits and learning skills, and recommending the course in various threads about learning is easily the majority of my comments on Hacker News. The first recommendation I have for anyone taking a meta look at learning is Barbara Oakley’s Learning How To Learn. Letting your mind focus and letting your mind wander I’ve enjoyed doing this when problem solving and learning, and recently I’ve been thinking about how weird it is to build trust in your unconscious to do the work for you, especially when it comes to technical work. One of the best ways to learn and come up with new ideas is to focus intensely on a problem, then let your mind wander. Trusting your mind to work in the background Caffeinspiration ←Home Archive Tags About RSS.If you wish, we will also remove from our Songs For Sale catalog this song and any other songs for which you hold the copyright. We will be happy to pay you industry-standard print royalties, retroactively to our first resale if any of this sheet music. If so, please contact us and let us know. We make a good-faith effort to identify copyright holders and pay appropriate print royalties for sheet music sales, but it’s possible that for this song we have not identified and paid you fair royalties. IF YOU ARE THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER: you are entitled to print royalties from all resales of this sheet music. Note that you are NOT the copyright holder if you performed this song, or if you arranged a song that’s already copyrighted. Tunescribers is committed to paying fair print royalties for all sheet music that we resell through our Songs For Sale service.ĪRE YOU THE COPYRIGHT HOLDER? You hold the copyright to this song if (a) you composed it and retained ownership of copyright, or (b) it’s in the public domain, you arranged it and retained ownership of copyright, or (c) you acquired the copyright from a previous owner.
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