Last week, I hit a wall with a race condition that had been flashing in our alerts channel for what seemed like an eternity. After hours of staring at logs and stack traces, I did what I always do when stuck: I went for a walk. No destination in mind, no fitness tracker – just me and the sidewalk.

When I tell people that walking is one of my hobbies, they usually give me a puzzled look. I get it. In a world of rock climbing and ultramarathons, “I like to walk around” sounds almost deliberately boring. But here’s the thing – skipping my daily walk is about as appealing as working without coffee. It’s simply part of how I function.

The Problem with Always Optimizing

As software engineers, we’re trained to optimize everything. We spend our days fine-tuning algorithms, reducing latency, and streamlining processes. Inevitably, this mindset seeps into our personal lives. We track our steps, monitor our heart rates, and try to quantify every aspect of our existence. But what if some activities are valuable precisely because they resist optimization1?

I’m not the first person to find clarity in aimless walking. Charles Darwin built a dedicated “thinking path” called the Sandwalk where he’d take three 45-minute walks each day. Steve Jobs was famous for his walking meetings – a practice that spread through Silicon Valley and remains common today (I’ll often go outside and walk during my 1-on-1 with my manager!). There’s actually some interesting research backing this up: Stanford researchers found that people come up with significantly more creative ideas while walking compared to sitting, and this boost continues even after they return to their desks.

Finding My Way

Working from home changed everything about my walking routine. Without the natural movements of office life – grabbing coffee, walking to meetings, bothering colleagues – I had to be more intentional about getting outside. Those little breaks that used to happen naturally now need planning. After a lot of trial and error, I’ve found what works: leaving the fitness tracker at home (not everything needs to be measured), walking without a set route (letting curiosity guide me), keeping my phone on silent (those messages can wait), and going alone (it’s easier to think when you’re not making small talk).

The irony is that by removing all purpose from walking, I often find its greatest purpose. Some of my best solutions have come when I wasn’t actively looking for them. Last month, I finally understood why our React component was re-rendering way too much while watching this truck on the side of the road suck up leaves leftover from the fall. The connection makes no sense, but that’s kind of the point.

In an industry obsessed with optimization, choosing to walk without purpose feels almost subversive. When every moment is supposed to be productive, doing something deliberately purposeless becomes its own kind of rebellion. Thatrace condition I mentioned? The solution came to me halfway through my walk. Not because I was thinking about the problem, but precisely because I wasn’t.

So the next time you’re stuck, try this: close the laptop, step outside, and just walk. No destination. No tracking. No purpose. You might be surprised at what your mind does when you stop trying to optimize it.

References

  1. Did I spend too much time at a liberal arts university? Heh ↩