There's a coffee shop in my town called 'Little Goat Coffee'.
It's run by a young dude, who brews an excellent cup.
For any of you coffee aficionados, he offers a 'brew corner' with Chemex and V60 brew options (posh filter coffee).
And it's bloody delicious.
The other day I was thinking to myself: “Why don't I go there more often?”.
And I legit had no answer to this.
My acupuncturist also said in passing the other day: “Sometimes I'd love to work from a pub”.
Now - she is obviously limited by the type of work she can do at the pub.
There's probably some sort of red tape / ethical line to be drawn around not being allowed to have pins in one hand, and a pint in the other (codswallop) - But, admin for sure.
Long story short.
Everyone suffers from some sort of self-imposed limitation.
One of mine being that any work conducted outside of my 'office', wasn't really work.
And working whilst also looking after myself?!
Pfft, you need to be in the gym by 5AM Adam, so it doesn't eat into your 'work schedule'.
Is what I'd say to myself.
But then a dog happened.
And then a newborn + wife in the house during the day happened.
And I started feeling guilty about the dog (she's a whippet and needs to be tired out - for the sake of my furniture).
And I started getting stir-crazy in my 4th bedroom / home office cubicle.
So I thought f*** it... Let's give it a go.
Why didn't anybody tell me about this?!
Have you ever seen these social media posts?
Turns out I'd been told about it / seen it a gazilion times, but because that “I don't have time to walk - I work too hard for that” voice kept getting in the way I never really did it.
Here's some AI sourced evidence:
Marily Oppezzo is a behavioural and learning scientist at Stanford. In a series of studies with Daniel Schwartz, people took a creativity test (think of as many uses for an object as you can) either sitting down or walking on a treadmill. According to Stanford Report in April 2014, walking raised creative output by an average of 60%. In her TEDxStanford talk she says the sitters came up with about 20 ideas, and the walkers did "almost twice as well".
There's also some stats to say that whether you walk outside, or use a desk treadmill makes f*** all difference. So you can do this even if you're a hermit.
On occasion I'd walk around the park and voice dictate parts of this newsletter, but they'd top out at about 30-mins (I still do this by the way).
Cue ChatGPT (obvs)
Creating Clarity vs Executing Clarity
After deciding to take this walking thing seriously.
I had a Chat with my friendly neighbourhood SpAIderman.
Who said:
“Gee, oh boy this is gonna be swell, walking is as much of a superpower as swinging from skyscrapers and being able to pull off upside down kisses with red heads”.
Ok - so it did not say that, but it did give me a great frame:
--
The question I'd ask before every walk
Instead of asking, "What can I get done while walking?" ask:
"What's the most valuable problem I could think more clearly about today?"
That's a different standard. It favours thinking that changes what you do next, rather than merely getting through more tasks.
And with your reported sharp drop around 2 PM, I would protect the morning for creating clarity and use the afternoon for executing clarity.
--
It then gave me a list of tasks best suited to walking, and some boring visuals.
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
Exhibit C
In true Adam style, I completely half(ish) followed through with the recommendations.
And kinda came up with my own walking routine:
4 Types of Walking
1. Just Walk
I've literaly just done this.
I got stuck at the end of the “Why didn't anybody tell me about this?!” section, and broke off for a walk.
I didn't put my headphones in. I just walked, and let my mind wander.
Walked up to the local garage. Got myself a Sneak Energy Cherry Limeade drink, and a Huel dark chocolate and raspberry complete nutrition bar.
And by the time I got back, I had the next 2 sections of the newsletter done (including this one).
2. Walk and Dictate
I alluded to this earlier.
I open up Recorder on my Android, and I just talk.
Talking out loud helps you make sense of things, and the more you talk the more connections come.
I often start by talking through my focus for the session, what challenges I'm stuck with, and then try and talk through a strategy.
Sometimes I'll then give the transcript to AI to write up and help me action.
Sometimes I just leave the transcript untouched, as the mere process of 'talking things through' helps me get clarity.
3. Walk with a Friend
I like to split this into business and personal.
On the personal front:
There's a Whippet almost identical to my dog Luna on the estate. So Sharon (Cooper's Mum) and I go out and let them run like hell together.
There is no purpose to this aside talking about dogs and enjoying each others' company. Sometimes you just need a break.
Dogs also count as friends btw:
Lin-Manuel Miranda wrote much of Hamilton on foot. He told the Manhattan Times: "Most of Hamilton was written when I was walking up Inwood Hill Park, Isham Park and Fort Tryon Park."
His trick is to loop the music and walk with it until the lyrics arrive. A loop is just a way of keeping one problem in front of you while you move.
And when his dog Tobillo died in February 2025, he paid tribute to her on Instagram as "the best writing partner anyone could ask for", who was "happily walking me around the neighborhood until I had the lyrics I needed."
On the business front:
I remember meeting up with my good friend and biggest client Nicolas Boucher (now around 4M following on social media - with one of the fastest growing creator businesses I've ever seen)
I've been over to his place in Germany a few times, and each time we've walked.
The main ones being after dinner at around 9PM. And we'd walk for an hour or more.
He lives in a nice neighbourhood so the threat level is pretty low (compared to Doncaster at least).
Whether it's a walking meeting, or just an opportunity to chat through great ideas. Walking with a colleague is a great route to 'aha' moments.
It was at the end of this first walk he decided on the theme of his Thursday newsletter: “The AI CFO”...
4. Optimised Walking
Now...
Da-dada-da...
Introducing 'Optimised Walking'...
I'm not first to the punch with this. I remember seeing this video from Allie K Miller talking about a founder who dictates to AI as he walks (Founder unknown).
So I started doing this.
I set up ChatGPT with custom instructions suited to using it's Voice Chat.
Then setup my project with knowledge / source info for the AI to use whilst I walk and talk.
In short, the steps are:
Create a new Project in ChatGPT or Claude
Add Custom Instructions suited to voice mode
Upload project knowledge (G-Drive Files, text, PDFs etc)
Start walking and put your headphones in
Open the project and hit voice chat
Achieve blistering clarity in ~60 mins
So far I've used this method to:
Edit complete newsletters (not the best use case)
Put together a complete brand partner campaign (good use case)
Brainstorm an new lead magnet / lead generation strategy for a partner (great use case)
Put together a complete brand negotiation plan (good use case)
I even turned the voice prompt into a universal walking prompt template that you can get completely and unashamedly free right here.
TL;DR
Walk
Until next time
Adam
—
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