I don’t think this can be said often enough: leaving a problem can often be the best route to solving it.
My train journeys to and from work can often be my most productive. Last night I solved a coding issue I’d been wrestling with all day whilst walking to the station. Half of me wanted to rush back to the office and try out my new routine, vividly coded in my mind. The other half patted me on the back and allowed for a calmer walk knowing that tomorrow would see everything come together.
Had I returned to the office I might not have thought about this vital problem solving method. I might not have reached for my phone and begin typing out other ideas that seemed to have been released from the dam. My own connectivity, linked as I was to all the Head First systems by phone, came surging to the fore. Because that’s what is increasingly becoming important in this hands off approach to problem solving. It’s all very well being able to step out of the office in order to find a fresh perspective but then, when it comes, how wonderful it is to be able to dip into the pocket and scribble, take notes, dictate – whatever it takes.
I think this concept is at the route of all good, modern advertising too. To create something knowing that it will accessed, reinterpreted and even reused in any of so many ways is liberating and defining. To step away from what you have created means it can often return in new, exciting ways.
