Or in the space of less than an hour.
Several years ago I dedicated myself to writing an album/CD's worth of songs. I'd recently got a dog and he needed to be walked regularly. So often was the case where I'd be stuck on where to take a particular song, hitting my head against a wall. Then, it would be time to walk the dog. While out for the stroll I'd come up with an idea. Sometimes that was the idea I'd run with and other times it would lead me to new, different ideas.
I no longer have the dog but I keep taking the walks when I get stuck.
"What does it tell us about the architecture of our psyches that, without our exerting effort or even thinking about it, some voice in our head pipes up to counsel us (and counsel us wisely) on how to do our work and live our lives? Whose voice is it? What software is grinding away, scanning gigabytes, while we, our mainstream selves, are otherwise occupied?"
--Steven Pressfield
Her conclusion was, she’d had to remake the whole thing.
Anyway she had a break and we were sitting by the fire having a glass of wine, she said, “oh, that dress I screwed up, I just realised can afford to be a few centimetres shorter, I’ll just take it up so the hole isn’t an issue anymore”.
It’s true, stepping back is power.
It's truly amazing what an uncluttered brain can do.
I began seeing value in "practical" meditation. That is, focusing on something mundane like doing dishes, to distract the brain from those other things. Sometimes it's all the busy us can afford. Not everyone has Jerry Seinfeld money to meditate in peace for one hour each day (he does).
- many Buddhist teachers, in many variations.
All we need to be is with awareness. When you start feeling that - then that is what I would say meditation.
I walk, I do slow walking every night reflecting on things that had happened in the day or just walk in silence. That helps me to ease my pain and have more space to think what is important at the moment and make decisions.
In other words, this is also related to the original comment which says about "patience". It doesn't happen all at once, practicing with patience is the key for progress.
Start small. Meditate for just a few minutes, as you currently do with the dishes, and slowly increase that, minute by minute. You'll might find that you have that hour in your day.
Without context, your statement is true; as a response, it seems a bit of a stretch.
> meditation can help one to realize the various other unnecessary things we do on a daily basis.
surely, cooking and cleaning aren't the only ways the parent spends their time. for instance, they're writing comments on HN!
Recently, though, I've been having dreams that leave me waking up, reflecting on various things in my life, often to my detriment. Interestingly, in a recent dream, I found myself doing accurate math (nothing serious, very basic arithmetic, but I've never experienced that before)
I think it would be best to do X, but then a few days later, the reasons I had no longer seem important and I think it would be better to do Y. And so on..
For whatever reason he just always needs to have everything solved 'now'. Most of the time, the best answer is to wait a bit. Probably this latest most important thing actually isn't all that important. And if it really is, the waiting will have brought on a much more "clear" solution.
I need to try to get up from my desk more when stuck. There's a bit of inertia to overcome in getting up from my seat, but it would probably be more efficient, thinking wise.
But I also do believe that time-sensitive problems can also pull the best solutions because I don't have the time to over-think which tends to destroy ideas for me.