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Yeah, talking to yourself is usually attributed to being a psycho, but I do this too. In crowdy environments I just do it quietly enough to be perceived as mumbling, as many other people.

I didn’t read tfa, but my guess is that with more senses involved, you get better short term memory coherence. Waiving your hands around the board or looking at pen-paper and drawing also helps. When in doubt, walk. When it is really hard, bathroom.

Just get a bluetooth headset, nobody will question you. You can record yourself on it too, helpful to playback later..

Why bother, who cares what other people say? The recording thing is not necessarily a bad idea but who has time to go through hours of mumbling? I’d record main ideas and summaries to have them be converted into text and revised. But ultimately the best way to go about this is to write things down either electronically or on paper and use self talking and circular walking as aids to this process

I use Otter[1] for this: I put my Airpods in transparent mode and then record my rambling while I walk my dog. Otter transcribes the whole thing and then I can use the transcription as a rough draft to then rewrite into something concrete.

Works great.

1: https://otter.ai/

> Why bother, who cares what other people say?

Your boss might not understand

“Who should we give the promotion to?”

“How about Joe, he’s been killing it this quarter”

“That guy talks to himself. I’m worrying about him killing ME next quarter. Let’s promote Bob instead”

It's funny, i also walk + talk to myself a ton - and work from home. However, i don't imagine a recording would help much for me. My verbal speech is often half thoughts, ideas expressed in partial to what is running through my mind.

Sometimes i come up with a well phrased final conclusion, but that's more rare i think. Usually it's impossible to follow from the outside.

> talking to yourself is usually attributed to being a psycho

Only if there are voices you hear in return are you considered "psychotic", with psychosis being defined as seeing or hearing things that are not real or attributed to self.

Our thoughts are real and there is nothing wrong with speaking those thoughts out loud any more than making a Youtube video for others to watch later (even yourself).

Agreed, I think it's perfectly normal as long as you don't think you're actually talking to someone (or hearing someone).

I'll pace around talking to myself when prepping for a meeting - it's basically practice for the topics I know we'll be discussing. I even practice responses to what I anticipate their likely responses will be.

It really helps because verbalizing something makes you think more deeply about how to communicate the idea or concept and will sometimes reveal gaps in your understanding or will reveal that you understand it but need to find a good way to concisely convey it to someone else who may not have the same level of expertise.

In my workplace one or two people will poke fun, but it's not a hostile environment and can be taken in good faith, or riposted with some friendly banter.

Practically speaking, it helps get my work done.

I’m a pacer too and recently found my daughter seems to have inherited the trait the upshot being that we occasionally collide whilst we pace around the kitchen muttering to ourselves. Hopefully with time we’ll be able to work out collision free routes

That’s adorable and made me smile :)

I find walking in small circles is even better if you have a tiled floor which can be felt tactilely underfoot. If I ever own a house, the one thing I’ll focus on is kitchen tiling with an interesting pattern.

When I'm on the phone for work, and no one is home, there is a rug in my living room with patters at various angles, just large enough to fit my feet, I tend to move around the rug like I'm following those numbered dance steps you see on the floor in dance classes.

Ah good, it's not just me haha

I'm the same as you and I did use to work in an office setting. I'd just go outside and walk around the building. Sometimes I'd walk for an hour aimlessly around the city, just talking to myself like a lunatic.

No harm at all getting your steps up for the day.

This is also a fantastic way to do the opposite - bring a book/reader/tablet/phone (and maybe a fruit or snack) and power through some learning materials.

My wife significantly reduced my Home-Office productivity by forbidding me to walk around while calling or designing things. She has problems concentrating when I do it so I understand, it's a major reason to move to a larger house next month.

Buy her a VR headset and a book on memory palaces: cheaper than a house!

This made me think of Scrooge mcDuck from the 90’s Disney cartoon Duck Tales.

He does the same thing all the time and in one episode even so much as to leave a deep, donut shaped trench in his floor.

It’s the “worry room”, originally from the comics: https://disney.fandom.com/wiki/Worry_Room

Your comment and this article brings me great joy. I do the same, I walk in circles even in tiny spaces. I like to put notebook and a pen on a table and sketch my thought process.

At home, this earned me the nickname "satellite". I felt uncomfortably self aware when I just moved in with my partner. Fortunately she finds it soothing.

I do walk when talking to people on the phone. I think it's because my brain approach communication as a problem to solve u_u;

Same here!

I do as well. I have found I still gesture on the phone too, despite people not being able to see me.

Also, I sloppily "conduct" classical music I'm listening too if I'm working in something hard alone.

Having a private space is nice.

My first programming job was building tools to make some warehouse work more efficient. At the outset I had most of the warehouse to myself and I walked around the warehouse talking out loud to myself to solve my programming problems. Once the warehouse was populated with workers and I was stuck to my desk I realized how much I needed that walking. Now that I'm working from home I do laps around my kitchen while solving tough problems.

I do that too

When I work from the office I take long walks outside when I need to think

I also "occupied" one (very) small meeting room and made it my private office, so I can close the door when I need it

But honestly sometimes talking about the problem with other people works as well as talking with yourself or the laptop

Wow. I am not autistic but I do the exact same thing. Walking in a circle and talking to myself to solve a problem or come up with new ideas.

I work in an office but since Covid-19 I have been working remotely which has been extremely beneficial for me for this reason.

The method works. The only open question is clockwise or counter-clockwise?

[p.s. I've gotten good result with elongated ovals too, btw. The main feature seems to be that the body is "going back to where one started". This seems to help the thinking process.]

Funny to see so many people doing the same.

My current apartment's topology is such that I can make 8's in it (while thinking of course). I'd never think a simple change in topology can make your thought process a little bit more interesting.

Walking absolutely helps and I do that a lot whenever I have a chance i.e. alone, but I'm not sure about talking out loud. In my mind an architectural/software problem is a structural thing, or a puzzle you need to put together mentally. Talking would only distract me from solving it.

I'm the exact same, although unlike some others, I only talk to myself when I'm alone or with someone who I am comfortable with. I've gotten complaints from neighbors below me at least twice due to this. Apparently it sounds like "a loud TV is on all the time". It would suck to live underneath someone who paces 5 miles a day in their apartment. I've made an effort to be quieter, but I can't imagine not being able to do this. I started recording my thoughts on my phone (using low quality because I have hundreds of hours of recordings now). It really helps and is an alternative to using a journal.

Why walk inside though?

All my complex architectures and systems were also conceived while pacing, so I hear you, but I never considered walking in circles in a room.

Now I'm curious – is that better than walking outside? Why not walk in nature or a park?

I understand not wanting to walk in a dangerous / unknown area (the pace regime implies full autopilot), but a tiny apartment sounds extreme. And isn't the proximity of external tools – like a computer – distracting to your thought process?

This is the same for me barring the walking. Usually I'm at my best focus in front of a whiteboard and talking to myself out loud, because walking distracts me. I work in a busy office where there's a lot of noise (which I'm sensitive to) and where I can't speak to myself loudly, so I feel I'm not very productive. Teleworking has been awesome

I do this too, infact I built a walking desk to just assist this habit of mine, so that I can think while looking at my screen and then also walk at the same time. I have been using it for the past couple of days, and till now tbh it doesn't really feel the same as it does with walking around the room but I'm slowly getting used to it, and my knee pain from sitting is gone