Walking, showering, sleeping, and riding a bike are great ways to debug code.
It's very cool to go to sleep and wake up knowing what the solution to the problem is.
The key for incubation for me is to make sure my brain can churn without distractions (that means no listening to podcasts, music, etc while performing said action).
Yup, that's the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Default_mode_network
It's the daydreaming/mind-wandering state that occurs when you're not focused on an external task. With all the stimuli of the modern world, I feel like we're being starved of crucial DMN time if we don't engineer conditions like the ones you describe.
Quite the interesting but unapproachable topic. Doesn't help that neurology logic on brain-level is dynamic and general rules are hard to extract.
Walking with no music + not using your phone. Leaves you plenty of space to think.
And sometimes to not think. Taking a walk is a great way to clear ones head.
but sometimes I need a little burst of the phone/music to serve as a distraction and force me to unplug from the hard problem that i'm fixated on. once i've successfully started thinking about something else, phone/music off and let the productive mind wandering begin
I find that even if I use my phone while walking I will eventually stop paying attention to the phone.
I remember during covid, cyclists were the ones in my town in a poll answering they missed their commute. It's such a nice way of thinking things through and then clearing your mind, then arriving home not thinking more about work.
Truth. Nothing is a greater spurn to creativity (cyclic mental exertion) than time away focusing on cyclic bodily exertion.
The hard part for me is stepping away when I'm grinding on some problem. It always feels like I'm sooo close and this next idea could be the one that lets me walk away victorious.
Usually I'm wrong though and taking a break would be a much better use of my time. Walking, biking, noodling on my guitar, or even going for a drive all seem to work for me.
AI coding has killed this, I should reduce the AI dependacy. The dopamine hit was different when I would wake up to a solution.
I find that I have more time to be a dreamer and let more interesting solutions unfold in my mind. After that the planning and execution is much faster.
Every time after I take a shower I write down all those brilliant Shower Thoughts.