zlacker

Walking is considered by einstein and pretty much all thinkers to be critical to deep work. It's also covered in Cal Newport's book "deep work" briefly. Which is a short audiobook worth reading.

One such prescription would be to do deep work early in the day then walk after and walk again 2 hours before bed. Another would be split the deep work with a 1 hour walk and do the 2nd walk after the 2nd block.

It may be more fulfilling with lots of interesting ideas rattling around. YMMV

>>beacon+(OP)
I desperately want to do this type of walking, but I live in a major city. There’s always something to distract me, which is great for boredom perhaps, but ruins any sense of zen or reflection. I would say half of every walk involves people yelling, loud vehicles, and louder music. Noise-cancelling headphones are only useful for distraction through podcasts and music, not for decompressing. I’m starting to wonder if the solution, the sad solution, is to walk on a treadmill at a gym during off-peak hours.

>>spooky+Z9
Have you considered earplugs? The firearms community have some pretty great ones which are readable and fit really well. Check out Axil x30i for example.

>>spooky+Z9
You could try white/pink/grey noise on the headphones, or a binaural beat generator (I use the brainwave app on iOS).

>>pegasu+pp
I find thunderstorm noises superior to white/coloured noise - because it's a natural sound the brain filters it out, and obtrustive noises are camouflaged within it, and filtered out too. So the loudness required is less than the loudness needed for white/coloured noise to be effective.

>>beacon+(OP)
All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.

-Friedrich Nietzsche

>>spooky+Z9
I am also not too satisfied by this problem. Newport says city walking increases decision fatigue instead of decreasing it. It seems like another point against urban environments. I still walk to and through city parks and I feel it helps me, but I take the same designed route every time to reduce decision fatigue. I think it still helps.