Steve Jobs’ Simple 10-Minute Rule: Neuroscience Now Confirms Its Power
By Pavethran Batmanathen
How Steve Jobs’ 10-Minute Rule Can Boost Your Brainpower: Backed by Modern Neuroscience
Imagine you’re at work, wrestling with a tough problem. You’ve been sitting at your desk, staring at the screen, pushing your brain to come up with a solution. Yet, despite all your efforts over the last 10 minutes, you’re still stuck.
What’s the next step?
If you were Steve Jobs, the answer would be simple: you’d get up, take a break, and go for a walk.
According to Jobs’ biographer, Walter Isaacson, walking wasn’t just a casual habit for the Apple co-founder; it was his preferred way to handle deep conversations. “Taking a long walk was his preferred way to have a serious conversation,” Isaacson noted. Jobs was known to spend long stretches of time walking barefoot, and those around him noticed it, too. Legendary designer Jony Ive, who collaborated closely with Jobs, recalled, “So much of our time together was spent quietly walking.”
But Jobs’ walking wasn’t merely a sign of his love for nature or a desire to stay physically active. There was a deeper, more instinctive reason behind this habit. Jobs understood something that modern neuroscience is now starting to confirm: walking can help unlock your brain’s potential, aiding in solving problems that seemed unsolvable while sitting still.
In fact, this insight has led at least one contemporary neuroscientist to recommend that we all follow Jobs’ lead by adopting what she calls the “10-minute rule.” This rule suggests that if you’ve been stuck on a mental problem for 10 minutes without finding a solution, it’s time to stand up and go for a walk.
The Science Behind the 10-Minute Rule
This recommendation comes from Mithu Storoni, a University of Cambridge-trained neuroscientist and author of Hyperefficient: Optimize Your Brain to Transform the Way You Work. In a recent episode of the HBR IdeaCast podcast, Storoni shared numerous strategies to make our brains function more efficiently, and one of her key suggestions was the 10-minute rule.
Storoni explains that one of her clients, a managing director, has adopted this very practice. Whenever he encounters a mental block after 10 minutes of work, he leaves his desk and takes a walk. Storoni’s reasoning? Brains don’t function like muscles.
In jobs requiring physical effort, such as screwing bolts on an assembly line, you can push your muscles to keep working until they’re tired. But with cognitive tasks, this “push harder” mentality doesn’t work. For repetitive tasks like responding to emails or handling routine paperwork, sustained focus can get the job done. But when it comes to solving complex problems or generating fresh ideas, trying to force solutions through brute mental effort can actually hinder progress.
For creative problem-solving, our brains need to enter a looser, more open state of mind, where novel connections can form, and previously invisible solutions emerge. Sitting and straining for hours won’t trigger those “aha!” moments; instead, it often leads to frustration. Storoni’s suggestion is to break the cycle of mental gridlock by changing your environment—specifically by walking.
Why Walking Works
Why is walking so effective at jumpstarting the brain? According to Storoni, the way we move our bodies influences the way we think. When we’re stuck in one place, so is our thinking. But walking, by its very nature, encourages mental movement.
Walking keeps us in a state of alertness, preventing us from zoning out or falling into distractions like checking our phones. Yet at the same time, it ensures that our attention doesn’t become fixed on any one thing for too long. As our surroundings constantly change, our attention is gently drawn from one point of interest to another. This shifting focus prevents us from getting trapped in a single mental loop, which allows new ideas and perspectives to enter the picture.
Storoni notes that walking helps the mind wander in a productive way. “It keeps your attention moving because your surroundings are moving, so your attention can’t really fix on anything. So it drifts into your head and explores your problems and tries to solve them from different avenues,” she explains.
This movement also prevents rumination. You can’t get stuck obsessively thinking about a single problem while walking because part of your attention is focused on where you’re going—ensuring you avoid obstacles, like streetlamps or potholes. This light attention to your physical surroundings encourages your brain to engage in a similar kind of light, exploratory thinking, which is ideal for generating new ideas.
A Tried and True Method of Genius
For those who are curious about the deeper neuroscience behind this process, including the neurotransmitters and brain circuits involved, Storoni’s podcast offers a more detailed explanation. But if you’re simply wondering if the 10-minute rule works, Steve Jobs’ life offers a compelling answer. The success of Apple and his other ventures are testament to the power of his walking routine.
And it’s not just Jobs who believed in the value of walking. Throughout history, countless great thinkers have also relied on walks to stimulate their creativity and intellectual prowess. Charles Darwin, Mark Zuckerberg, and many others swore by the mental clarity and innovative thinking that walking provided.
In fact, biographical and scientific evidence both point to the same conclusion: if you’re stuck on a tough problem for more than 10 minutes, the smartest thing you can do is to stop forcing it, get up, and take a walk.
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