From an interview with Jerry Seinfeld at HBR:

HBR: You and Larry David wrote Seinfeld together, without a traditional writers’ room, and burnout was one reason you stopped. Was there a more sustainable way to do it? Could McKinsey or someone have helped you find a better model?

Jerry: Who’s McKinsey?

HBR: It’s a consulting firm.

Jerry: Are they funny?

HBR: No.

Jerry: Then I don’t need them. If you’re efficient, you’re doing it the wrong way. The right way is the hard way. The...

Here’s Rich Hickey (creator of Clojure) on the benefits of stepping away from the computer, in his talk on “hammock-driven development”:

He differentiates what the “waking” mind and “background” mind are good at, which I’d interchangeably refer to as the “at the desk” mind and the “away from the computer” mind:

• Waking mind:
  • Good at critical thinking; analysis, tactics
  • Prone to finding local maxima
  • Can feed work to the background mind
• Background mind:
  • Good at making...