Steve Jobs swore the 10-minute rule made him smarter. Modern neuroscience is discovering he was right

Say you're facing a difficult problem at work, and even though you've been sitting at your desk for the last 10 minutes straining your brain to think of a solution, you're still coming up blank.

What do you do?

If you happened to be Steve Jobs, the answer to this question would be simple.

You'd stand up and go for a walk.

"Taking a long walk was his preferred way to have a serious conversation," reports Jobs biographer Walter Isaacson.

"So much of our time together was spent quietly walking," recalled legendary designer Jony Ives.

Read any profile or book on Jobs, and you'll find he spends a great deal of it padding around barefoot.

Jobs's constant roaming wasn't just about a love of the outdoors or physical exercise.

The late Apple boss intuited something that neuroscience is now proving – walking makes your brain work a little bit better, helping you crack problems that stumped you while sitting.

That's why at least one modern neuroscientist recommends we all make like Jobs and follow the 10-minute rule: If you haven't solved a tough mental problem after 10 minutes of trying, stand up and go for a walk.

This recommendation comes from Mithu Storoni, a University of Cambridge-trained neuroscientist and author of the book Hyperefficient: Optimize Your Brain To Transform The Way You Work.

In a recent appearance on the HBR IdeaCast podcast, she shares a slew of ideas to make your brain work more efficiently, including the 10-minute rule.

"I have some clients, and... one managing director has adopted a rule of, if he's sitting in front of his computer with a problem that he hasn't managed to solve for 10 minutes, he leaves his desk, he goes for a walk," Storoni reports.

Brains aren't like muscles, she explains. If you do a physical job like screwing in widgets on an assembly line, you can just push your muscles to keep screwing in widgets until they become fatigued. More effort generally leads to more results.

But for jobs where we rely more on our brains than our muscles, this more-is-more approach often backfires. Sure, for routine busywork, heads-down focus is often best. You do not need to be creative to power through emails. Just sit at your desk and get it done.

Whenever you have to come up with a new idea or solve a problem, however, you need a more open, loose mental state where your mind can make novel connections and discover paths around obstacles. Just sitting there struggling for long periods of time leads to frustration, not eureka moments.

Ref: Steve Jobs swore the 10-minute rule made him smarter. Modern neuroscience is discovering he was right (thestar)