[lofatdairy]

There's probably an argument to be made that at least those tasks might help push you out of a rut if you've spent hours banging your head against a wall. God knows cleaning my desk is probably a better use of my time right now than commenting yet again on HN.

[glotchimo]

Yeah I’ve certainly heard that doing something small can help get the engine going, but anecdotally, it totally goes both ways. I’ve had afternoons where I clean something or what have you and get right back to it and others where I clean something and end up changing the capitalization of symbols for no reason.

[p1necone]

When I'm working on a hard problem and I identify that I actually do need to stop and just think about it more indirectly I find going for a walk to be pretty useful.