When your best work doesn't look like work
I was an okay math student in high school — on the accelerated track, but got a little lost somewhere in trigonometry. I just couldn’t think through the problems.
If only I had known about the shower.
When I revisited high school mathematics in adulthood, it was fun. It wasn’t for fun, since I had professional reasons for doing it, but it felt like a hobby. And I found myself treating a difficult problem or proof like a puzzle to solve instead of an unwanted chore.
I’d ponder for a half hour or so — and then I’d go take a shower. And in the shower, the solution would arrive, the way it always does, and I would emerge victorious (and clean).
The life of a creative adult is filled with these kinds of hacks — tactics for problem-solving and reaching our goals that work with instead of against the capricious, clever human brain.
And yet, to a great extent, we expect kids to function well without any hacks, all while working to attain goals that aren’t even their own. When it doesn’t go well, they are supposed to buckle down and try harder. It’s like we’re asking them to grab something off the shelf by stretching and straining to reach it — without telling them there’s a step-stool in the next room.
A gifted third-grade math student loved to do complex problems in his head. His preferred tactic was to pace around the dining room while he worked toward a solution. He would climb up, down, and around the dining room chair twenty times and then walk around the table thirty times like a tiny CrossFitter doing a demanding workout — all while thinking just as vigorously as he was moving.
I asked his mom whether he was allowed to work this way at school. She laughed. “He likes to get on the floor, but they tell him to get back in his chair.”
They told me the same thing — and probably you as well. Thus, we learn that our natural impulses are bad and wrong and disobedient, and that our frequent breaks make us lazy and uncooperative. We then have to spend a couple of decades unlearning these lessons if we want to get any work done.
Much of our best work is not done at our desks. It doesn’t look like work. Here are just a few of the tactics people use to succeed in a project:
Going for frequent walks — or one really long one
Sleeping on it (sometimes in the middle of the day)
Throwing a ball around, playing a game, or mindlessly playing with a toy
Talking things through with others — or inviting them as collaborators
Consuming significant sugar and caffeine (sometimes, the placebo effect is what actually makes the difference)
Switching to a different physical position (upside down, sideways, backward) relative to one’s desk
Procrastinating by working on a different project for awhile (or not working at all)
Wearing earplugs or playing music through headphones at a high level to block out the world
Working in a busy public place, like a cafe or hotel lobby
Working in complete isolation (sometimes for days on end, in a lonely hotel room — according to Neil Gaiman as interviewed on Tim Ferris’ podcast, this one was preferred by Bond novelist Ian Fleming)
Delegating the part we don’t like to someone else
Dictating a piece of writing into a voice recorder or simply thinking out loud
Getting angry and spending hours, days, or weeks in a funk until the eventual breakthrough
Reading books or articles or listening to interviews of people who have overcome similar challenges
Abandoning the existing project and starting fresh with something more meaningful
I think I’ve used just about every one of these tactics, and they all work to help move you forward.
And every single one of them is not allowed for most kids who are supposed to be doing schoolwork in a classroom.
Everyone has a different process. If you trap me at a desk for eight hours, I will try to look like I’m working for as long as possible, but if I can’t get up and walk around, I am screwed. And if I can’t think out loud, I will not be able to think.
If a kid has a hard time sitting still, there’s nothing wrong with her. If a kid likes to talk, there’s nothing wrong with him. Hour after hour, day after day, kids give their very best effort to work that they usually didn’t choose, often sitting in a chair with no cushion. And maybe on an empty stomach and with a full bladder. Would you be able to do it?
I did better than most — but I wouldn’t be willing to do it now! I feel that I owe it to the kid I used to be, and to all the other kids, to share a different way.
I am on a mission to explicitly teach children and adolescents that there are lots of different ways to work, and that breaks, movement, sleep, and snacks are all part of the process.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go take another walk before I make my last edits on this article.