Working in the woods.

Are you paid to warm a seat, or produce ideas?

As a knowledge worker whose primary product is my ideas, a solo hike on a workday afternoon may have been the most valuable thing I did all week for my employer. What a privilege, and what an interesting responsibility.

On this particular day, my plan was to leave for this hike at 5pm, endure a long drive in rush hour traffic, then cram in a short hike before camping outside for the first time in my adult life. I was training for a week-long backcountry hike and this would be my 1-night dress rehearsal.)

My brain was fried. It had been a long week, and it was only Wednesday. I finished another frustrating meeting around midday and in a rush, decided “screw it, let’s go now.” I had no more meetings scheduled, nothing due the next day, and all on-call concerns were covered by others.

The only thing to get over was the guilt of leaving my chair before the “workday” was over. I kept checking my phone until service disappeared and I was forced to disconnect.

It only took me a few hours before my mind cleared. As I walked through the woods, phone off, camera and trekking poles in hand, thoughts started to sort themselves out.

Through the rest of the evening, ideas would flow and I would repeat them aloud into the voice memo app on my phone. Well into the night and early next morning — as I scrambled over rocks with a 40lb pack, battled mosquitoes, made coffee from river water, and read a book with a flashlight like a kid — novel ideas presented themselves on problems that had plagued my productivity for months.

Returning to normal life the next day, it took me two full hours to process these notes. Documents were drafted. Emails were sent. Plans were updated. Work moved forward.

Why did I feel such guilt and resistance to making this happen?

You can’t hike every day. (Managers, relax, I’m not advocating r/antiwork. That place is yikes 😬). Can we acknowledge that knowledge work may be different? More often than not, work demands we show up when we don’t feel like it. That’s great, but this is not about feelings. A surgeon may not be able to perform surgery in the woods. But when your product is your mind, creating space for it to work is a necessary investment.

A simple hike. 20 hours alone in the woods. There are moments when the most valuable thing you can offer your employer or customer is your inattention. Just don’t forget to take notes.