I just realized something today and it has echoes of what was said by Paul Graham when he spoke about what business can learn from open source.
When I’m writing or hacking I spend as much time just thinking as I do actually typing. Half the time I’m sitting drinking a cup of tea, or walking around the neighborhood. This is a critical phase— this is where ideas come from— and yet I’d feel guilty doing this in most offices, with everyone else looking busy. Working in crappy informal spaces is one of the things startups do right without realizing it. As soon as you get into an office, work and life start to drift apart.
What I realized is that this applies to me as well and I need to start doing two things to promote this.
- Get out and walk around my neighborhood more, primarily as a means to let my ideas flow (like they did today for me).
- Also to carry a small pocket notebook or scratch pad to record my ideas that come to me when I’m out walking about.