
Why being a thinker takes quiet time - typicalrunt
http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/23/tech/innovation/thinking-time/index.html?c=tech
======
asolove
Necessary reading material: "Solitude and Leadership" [0], an address by
William Deresiewicz to the United States Military Academy that discusses the
importance of forming your own ideas through careful reflection. As important
to the task of creating something of quality on a computer as to becoming an
upstanding military officer.

[0] [http://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-
leadership/](http://theamericanscholar.org/solitude-and-leadership/)

~~~
hdivider
I'm speechless. Best essay I've read in a _long_ time.

I'm posting this just to say _thank you_. I wouldn't have found this if not
for your comment.

~~~
tekacs
I'm just posting to say thank you (@hdivider) for expressing your opinion here
- if not for your exuberant praise I think it unlikely I would have clicked
this link in the middle of a comment thread.

I'm very glad that I found your praise and clicked the link. :)

~~~
rehack
Wow! truly great to see so much love between HNers.

As a long time lurker (occasional commenter etc.) I immediately was reminded
of this great essay as soon as I saw this current story.

Just in case you folks had not seen, the old discussions:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1476425](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1476425)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2110779](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2110779)

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typicalrunt
I'm a legs-up-on-table type of dreamer and thinker when I work. However, after
working in corporate environments for many years I'm developing what can only
been called a cognitive dissonance about this type of quiet thinking. The
issue is that managers have always wanted me to track my time in 15-30 min
increments, and there is _never_ an expense category for "quiet thinking and
reflection". Thus I've started to feel like a time thief [1] and it weighs on
my conscience even though I know, deep down, that my quiet reflections are
being used to solve difficult problems.

[1] [http://timewellscheduled.com/time-
theft/](http://timewellscheduled.com/time-theft/)

~~~
BrokenEnso
File it under Analysis; which is exactly what you are doing.

~~~
atwebb
Research and Concept Design can work too, who else has some good buzzwords?

~~~
sp332
Schedule a meeting for "ideating" with several other people who want to think
quietly. Rotate whose project gets billed for the time.

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pasbesoin
What I HATE is that we now have this "trend" \-- or a bit of press based upon
it -- from THE SAME institutions that foisted "veal pen", "collaborative"
productivity upon us, for a couple of decades.

From one person who "saved the company", or certainly his department (and
more), a couple of times, yet suffered mercilessly under a "cost cutting
motivated", one-size-fits-all HR "best practices" promulgated reign of...
"abuse", frankly:

FUCK YOU.

I can't read these articles without become incensed, because I sense that
behind many of them are the same idiots who made life miserable.

AND... I suspect that "quiet time" will still remain the privilege and
province of that minority of employee "who counts".

/rant

~~~
pasbesoin
Sorry for the outburst. I need to take a break for a while.

To those who haven't become so bitter: An object lesson in the need to get out
of miserable circumstances, before they get you.

~~~
tsunamifury
As a Product Manager, I'm familiar with being on the other side of an outburst
like this. I run a relaxed dev team with regular flexible hours, plenty of
work-from-home, scheduled check ins and clear project timelines, with a sprint
maybe at most twice a year lasting for 4-5 days maximum, and I still get these
outbursts.

Im curious, because sometimes I think regardless of policy, some devs put
mental pressure on themselves to the point of outburst and project it on
policies or office issues or management. How much of this do you think is the
policies you hate, and how much if it is your own internal struggle with what
you'd rather be doing.

------
tieTYT
Reminds me of Hammock Driven Development by Rich Hickey:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f84n5oFoZBc)

~~~
espeed
Yes, great talk -- I was just about to post that link. For those who haven't
seen it, definitely check it out.

Rich describes his design process and talks about how deep contemplation is a
mechanism that transfers an idea from your conscious mind to your unconscious
mind (your big brain) where the real horsepower is.

John Cleese also talks about this idea in his lecture on creativity
([http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VShmtsLhkQg](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VShmtsLhkQg)).

In another talk Rich mentions that he has been able to spend a year in deep
contemplation three times in his life: one was for Clojure, one was Datomic,
and one other yet-to-be-named project.

BTW: You can tap into even more horsepower by pairing deep contemplation with
a good night's sleep, where you go to sleep still thinking about the problem
(Rich touches on this briefly).

Research shows sleep is when the brain prunes itself by separating signal from
noise...

"Sleep researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine
and Public Health believe it is more evidence for their theory of 'synaptic
homeostasis.' This is the idea that synapses grow stronger when we're awake as
we learn and adapt to an ever-changing the environment, that sleep refreshes
the brain by bringing synapses back to a lower level of strength. This is
important because larger synapses consume a lot of energy, occupy more space
and require more supplies, including the proteins examined in this study."

"Sleep — by allowing synaptic downscaling — saves energy, space and material,
and clears away unnecessary 'noise' from the previous day, the researchers
believe. The fresh brain is then ready to learn again in the morning"
([http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090402143455.ht...](http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/090402143455.htm)).

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Swizec
I'm still not sure how HN feels about these, but here's a shameless self-plug
for my book on the topic of why and how people need quiet time to work well.
It's focused on programmers, but is mostly applicable to everyone really:
[http://nightowlsbook.com](http://nightowlsbook.com)

Also Paul Graham's essay about why you need long uninterrupted sessions to do
anything serious is a good read on the topic:
[http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html](http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html)

~~~
phaus
I think it was kind of silly for PG to suggest that a programmer's dislike of
meetings is somehow greater than everyone else's. I've worked in several
fields, I haven't met anyone that either liked meetings, or felt that they
were productive enough to warrant the amount of time that the organization
spent on them. I'm pretty sure that we all hate them equally. There is nothing
special about programmers that makes them not like meetings more.

That being said, I agree that people involved in intellectually rigorous or
highly technical work are probably affected more by any type of interruption
than someone working on something more simplistic. So, perhaps the
programmer's dislike of meetings is more legitimate, even if it isn't more
intense.

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Theodores
I have spent more than a decade trying to solve a problem. I do day jobs and
sometimes I take a few days off to work on _the_ problem - in quiet
contemplation. What I have noticed is that it has taken me more than ten years
to 'see' a few important details pertinent to the whole.

I think that civilisation only moves on when society can afford a few people
the time to think quite deeply about things, experiment with ideas and not
have to worry too much about paying the bills. It is a pity that our education
system does not inspire people to want to do this, spend as long as it takes
working on something of e=mc2 splendour that will benefit the world. We cannot
remember which of the ancient Greeks were rich but we do know their great
thinkers. In the pecking order of 'fame', being a great thinker rules the
roost.

~~~
nileshtrivedi
Not really disagreeing with you but want to point out that Einstein had a very
ordinary clerical job at the time when he figured out relativity. I even think
the discussions with one of his colleagues played an important role.

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georgemcbay
Yes, yes, detach yourself from your smartphone and cable tv and twitter
sometimes. But do that on your own time! When you're on company time, let's
squeeze 50 of you into this cramped open office plan seating arrangement. But
don't worry, we'll add an air hockey table and a couple of pinball machines in
there too to increase the company culture!

Oh technology industry, where did you go wrong?

~~~
zimpenfish
I'd love to work somewhere with pinball machines. Sign me up!

~~~
mdda
The pinball machines are right behind you, but you've got a deadline to meet,
and the guys from marketing have decided to have a competition before they
leave early on a Friday afternoon. Enjoy!

------
vladmk
Great read and I definitely agree. When people used to say: "I'm bored" you
could suggest they do something productive, my generation never says that
because of internet, tv and video games.

~~~
mhurron
I say I'm bored all the time.

Just because I have something I could do (productive or not) doesn't mean I'm
motivated to do it.

'I'm bored' doesn't mean you have nothing to do, it means you have nothing
that is currently interesting to you. Telling me to something you deem
productive is just going to make busy and bored, assuming I did it in the
first place.

~~~
abirfrankel
Agreed, boredom is such an over used term boredom as acute apathy and/or lack
of novelty.

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jgmmo
Narrated title. Went to post to a social network and realized the real title
is "Why being a thinker means pocketing your smartphone"

~~~
typicalrunt
No. When I submitted the article I copy-pasted the title from CNN into HN. CNN
must have updated the article's title since then.

------
Jamurai
If the article is correct, then ironically, reading this article made me less
creative.

But I certainly think there's something to be said for detaching from external
stimuli and taking quiet time. Last weekend my phone ran out of batteries
early in the afternoon and I was without internet/mobile until I got home late
that night. I had all sorts of realizations about my area of work--things that
I was looking to answers for externally but hadn't taken the time to process
myself.

~~~
lubujackson
Well, you didn't get an opportunity to be creative while reading the article,
but I don't think it made you "less creative". Both engagement and solitude
are important - engagement to activate your imagination and solitude to
provide the room to imagine.

------
Johnie
The idea of a lone genius sitting in a room in isolation coming up with a
brilliant idea seems to be a myth.

Most idea generation come from interaction with other people and finding
different opportunities in putting together two disjoint ideas. This is how
college campuses work and this is how tech areas, like Silicon Valley, work.

Yes, you need time to reflect on those ideas and maybe in quiet isolation. But
you still need the data gathering.

~~~
freshhawk
Doesn't the research show that it's most effective to have people reflect,
come up with ideas independently and then compare ideas, followed obviously by
more reflection?

No one is saying collaboration is bad, just stressing that the reflection part
can't be skipped. And in my experience it often is.

~~~
stephp
Yes, exactly. Also pointing to the fact that "this is how college campuses and
Silicon Valley work" is not proof of anything, unfortunately. I worked in a
huge open office before, as is fashionable at tech companies right now, and it
was the ultimate worst. I've read research saying it wasn't just me, either;
people are really hindered in overly-collaborative open office environments.
Especially introverts-- which many of us are.

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kimscheibel
Reminds me of this little ditty from the 1980's when phones were still
decidedly dumb and - would you believe it - still wired. "You occupy your time
with such silly things; do you have to go every time the phone rings". Sister
Sledge, Reach Your Peak.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC5jeYEwbqU](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC5jeYEwbqU)

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scott_meade
Why does being a thinker take quiet time? The article never says, as far as I
can tell.

~~~
RogerL
Well, it surely was lacking in the evidence department.

However, it certainly squares with my experience. Heck, I was up at 430am this
morning, standing in my garage and giving an impromptu lecture to my clothes
dryer about the math behind Kalman filters and Dempster-Shafer theory, because
I had some ideas in my brain burning to get out, and talk out loud imaginary
lectures do that for me (YMMV). Kind of hard to get that kind of solitude and
privacy in a workplace where you have to measure every 15 minutes of
productivity, or work in a open work space, or, you get the idea.

~~~
freshhawk
Interesting, I find sometimes I have to dictate into a recorder app to get the
ideas out best, I suppose those end up being said in a lecture style a lot of
the time, but that had never occurred to me.

So you aren't alone in that habit. I find listening to those notes something I
don't do quickly enough but the number of times I've listened to an old one
and heard myself say "... Have to watch out for X I suppose, anyway..." where
X is a problem/bug that showed up later and was hard to track down has
convinced me this can be a really useful exercise.

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bambax
Totally agree with the article, but not the title: one does not need to "be a
thinker" to think; anyone can think if they try (in silence and isolation).

The best ideas very rarely come from professional "thinkers".

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seivan
I need to sit down and think quietly for myself whenever I design the public
portion of a class.

Or any REST api (which is sorta the public portion of a class exposed over
HTTP I guess).

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bsbechtel
Totally agree with this.

