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Comment by pixelmonkey | Hacker News Reader

Relatedly, I’ve tried to reduce my habit of listening to podcasts on long walks. I didn’t realize (until way too late) that this habit was stealing creative time from my brain. Podcasts flip my brain into “passive media consumer” mode during what were otherwise my most intellectually creative minutes and hours, and nonfiction/business/tech podcasts also fool my ego into thinking that the podcast listening time is “productive”, to boot.

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Glad that you got out of it! I am baffled by the amount of people people walking/running around with headphones, blasting music (or something else), never made any sense to me.

I'd rather consume distracting/stimulating stuff within the comforts of white walls while leaving the mother nature surroundings to consumption with open eyes.

I guess that depends on where you walk.

In mother nature's embrace, I prefer to walk with my senses open. Especially when I was in Virginia, I love walking on the trails. I could hear birds and insects, see trees and grasses, and sniff the fresh hearty aroma of the luxuriant ecosystem. It was pleasant to open up myself to the nature.

Now that I live in a city, during my jog, I see vehicles, hear engines and leaf blowers, and smell gasoline, pot, and alcohol. No thanks. I'd rather escape to 18 century music, so I can forget about the grim reality for 40 minutes.

Cities are different. Copenhagen for example is the opposite of what you describe. I’ve walked miles and miles in Copenhagen. My head tilted just a little to also see what is above the shop fronts. A lot of beautiful architecture. Very inspiring. For a period I lived near a very large cemetery. Many many peaceful walks there. Not a living soul there to disturb your creativity.

I used to feel similar about a city I lived in for quite a time. In winter it was super depressing. Imagine communist architecture everywhere, short winter days, often foggy. I got maniac about zen meditation stuff and I decided that I will try to be aware to surroundings to the best I can when I walk and the change was mindblowing. I really started to appreciate the walks in what once was a very depressing landscape, the picture got much more clear and vivid. So much stuff happenning, I enjoyed "tuning to the beat of the city". I also started to notice whatever little pieces of nature were left, like birds signing or naked trees here and there (in winter). Suddenly a walk in a busy city centre could be just as refreshing as a walk in the forest. Maybe even more refreshing (to me). I have noticed that in peaceful places I have more tendency to get stuck in my head, while in busy places, it's easier to focus outward and observe.

I do think the right music can sometimes enhance a walk

It does and often that mother nature sound is just traffic around it. Not really mother nature sound one might want.

That also depends on the people. I, for example, have ADD and music helps me get in the zone, because it's just enough distraction to ignore other noise. I listen to a lot of music or endel while working.

Familiar music can be really invigorating for a creative thought walk. In my own personal experience it can help me tune out other distracting stimuli, like people places and things.

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I listen to tech podcasts while walking and often think about how to connect technology to my business issues. I find it to be a creative exercise that has paid off in my career in solving problems.

I have the opposite problem where I get into a creative thinking mode and tune out the podcast Sometimes I'll stop a podcast during a walk and switch to music if I actually want to focus on it at a later time (many podcasts I listen to are kind of background noise for me though)

Interesting, I was never able to motivate myself to do much walking until I started putting podcasts on. With them though it's become a daily habit.

I also noticed this since my commute time dropped to zero because of the pandemic. I’m now motivate myself to go for a walk (alone) few times a week.

Woow. There's a study proving it. Walking is the best option to me whenever I have to do something new. I keep thinking about it to get a better solution. I will be able to think about it without much distraction.

Most people do their thinking on the pot... or at least they used to, before cell phones.

Partly for this reason, I've been considering starting an open source project to make a mobile-first Web based app/website development environment. That way, whenever I realise I'm distractedly using my phone (not just on the loo!) I can flip over to a different website and get back to figuring out whatever code has got me stumped recently :)

mobile phones are huge distraction for everyone nowadays. I used to carry it everywhere (even for loo) and take more time than usual to complete that task. If there's a product to make people less distracted, then it will be of great use

Thinking fast when on the spot

Thinking slow when on the pot

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