Michael Pollan

I would say the biggest barrier for me in productivity, true productivity, which is the ability to do better with the same amount of resources that you already have, is that I don't spend enough time with my mind wandering.

And...

It is routine that the absolutely most creatively important times I will spend, I thought I was taking a break.

Yeah.

I thought I was doing something else.

Taking a walk.

I wasn't just driving my mind further into the ground, flicking through webpages when I was already too tired to absorb information.

Right.

Then all of a sudden I'll have the insight or I'll realize where I should call this person or, and I don't know where it comes from.

But it's those moments of inside epiphany creatively aligned that comes into my head.

Or what the economy should consider productive thought if it were smarter.

You can't quantify it on the hour-to-hour level.

One of the most interesting mind states for me is a mind state I functionally only have when I am reading something on paper without screen distractions around me.

which is it becomes my mind becomes highly associational and I'll be reading and then I'll look up and I'll have ideas they're often not about the book at all it's like the book itself is a scaffolding of a certain kind of attention

But I'm aware and I'm awake.

And so I'm noticing other things.

It is by far my most creative state.

Yeah.

And it is achieved more easily on airplanes than anywhere else because then you really don't have distractions.

But it can happen at a coffee shop.