On Oct 27, 2005, at 11:43 AM, Frank Wales wrote:
Perhaps because I'm an only child, I'm in the odd habit of holding a conversation with myself when working on a problem, in which I play both sides of the "I don't understand why this doesn't work"/ "Well, that clearly can't work because of *this*" discussion.
Whew. I'm glad I'm not the only one who does this. :-) When thinking about problems I often try to find a way to be alone and I spend an hour or so pacing around the room talking to myself. It helps even more to have a whiteboard available so I can also show things to myself as well (I'm more of a visual learner, I think). My theory is that as the information is put into words my mind if forced to clarify things that may only exist as nebulous "ideas" for the purpose of communication. As I listen to myself talking, the idea then goes through another layer of translation which verifies the incoming information in a way I can't seem to do internally. The upshot is that the information is essentially vetted twice - once on the way out, and once on the way back in. The resulting complete thoughts are much more clear by the end of it. I find that the same effect can be achieved by opening up a text editor and just spewing text in a conversational way and reading it back to myself. Often I end up doing both.
What was the question again? Oh, yes, sitting for a long time. Here's a suggestion: have you tried *standing* while you work? Some people report that having a stand-up desk, usually with something like a bar stool to prop their backside on from time to time, makes them feel more energized as they work. If you're the kind of person who likes to pace while they think, this might be worth trying out, assuming your workplace allows for it.
The first time I heard about this was in an article I read about a tour through the animation studio Pixar. At Pixar the artists are generally given a small space (technically not a cubicle) which they can then customize to their liking with any sort of furniture, walls, doors, desks, etc. The part that stuck out was that the author of the piece had noticed at least one animator didn't have a chair at all - he stood up while he worked! His desk was placed near a wall so that he could lean against the wall as needed, but at front of his space (away from the computer) he had a fluffy couch to lie down on for the really tough problems.
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