Why every creative person should take long walks

Every day at around three o'clock, I stop working and go for a walk. No podcast, no phone calls, no destination. Just forty minutes of walking. It is the most productive thing I do all day, and I did not believe it until I tried it.

The afternoon wall

Everyone who does creative work knows the afternoon wall. Around two or three, focus disappears. You read the same sentence four times. You open social media without deciding to. You start "tidying" files that did not need tidying.

For years I fought it with coffee and guilt. Neither worked. What works is giving up, standing up and going outside.

Why walking works

There is a lot of research on this, and it mostly agrees: walking, especially outdoors, improves creative thinking. People come up with more ideas and more unusual ideas during and just after a walk. Scientists are still arguing about exactly why. I am not, because I do not need to know why it works to know that it does.

My own theory is simple. Walking gives your body something easy to do, which lets your mind drift. And the drift is where connections happen. The problem you were stuck on at your desk quietly solves itself somewhere around the second corner.

I have never had a good idea at my desk. I have had hundreds on the way to the park.

Sam Okafor

The rules I follow

1. No podcasts, no music. The point is to let your mind wander. Filling it with other people's ideas defeats that.
2. No destination. A walk with an errand attached is an errand, not a walk.
3. Leave the phone in your pocket. I take it for safety. I do not take it out.
4. Bring a small notebook. Ideas will come. Catch them.
5. Go even when it is raining. Especially when it is raining. Rain walks are the best walks.

What changed

Since I started walking every afternoon, my work has changed in three clear ways. My writing got better, because I now solve most structural problems on foot before I sit down. My evenings got better, because the afternoon slump no longer eats the whole day. And my mood got better, which, if I am honest, makes everything else easier.

Walking meetings

Once I saw the effect on my own work, I started taking some calls on foot. Not every call, but the ones that are about ideas rather than details. Brainstorming, planning, catching up with other creators. People say more interesting things when they are moving, and nobody is looking at a screen.

Walking when you are stuck

The walk has a second use beyond the afternoon slump. When I am stuck on a specific problem, such as how to start an issue, what to call a product or how to answer a difficult email, I go for a short walk with that one question in mind. Not thinking hard about it, just carrying it.

More often than not, the answer turns up somewhere along the way. When it does, I stop and write it down immediately, because walk ideas vanish just as quickly as shower ideas.

A few favourite routes

Variety helps. I have three routes I rotate between: one through the park, which is quiet and green; one through the busy shopping streets, which is full of things to look at; and one along the river, which is flat and good for thinking. Each one produces a different kind of idea. The park is good for writing. The streets are good for product ideas. The river is good for big decisions.

Walking with others

Once a week, I walk with a friend who also works for herself. We do not talk about work for the first half. By the second half, we almost always do, and those conversations have shaped more of my business than any course I have taken.

Give it a month

If you only take one thing from this issue, take this: when you hit the wall this afternoon, do not push through. Put on your shoes and go outside for twenty minutes. Leave the problem at your desk. There is a good chance it will have solved itself by the time you get back.