Pause the Problem: How Gaming Sparks Tech Breakthroughs
Episode Summary:
Ever been stuck on a stubborn tech problem with no solution in sight? Before you burn out staring at error messages, try this: Take a break and play a video game! In this episode, we explore how stepping away from a problem and engaging in a quick, immersive game can spark new ideas, reduce stress, and improve problem-solving skills.
I’ll share my personal experience of troubleshooting an AI software issue and how a quick game of chess led me to the answer I couldn’t find after hours of research. Plus, I’ll break down how background processing in our brains works—similar to how computers handle tasks in the background.
What You’ll Learn in This Episode:
🎮 How gaming can reset your mental focus and spark creative solutions
🧠 Why your subconscious continues problem-solving in the background
⏳ The best types of quick, engaging games to maximize effectiveness
📌 How to set time limits to avoid gaming becoming a distraction
🚶♂️ Alternative strategies if gaming isn’t your thing (hint: walking and hobbies work too!)
Key Takeaways:
🔹 If you’re stuck on a tech challenge, taking a short, engaging break can unlock new insights.
🔹 Games like Apex Legends or chess create a flow state, refreshing your brain.
🔹 Avoid burnout by recognizing when it’s time to step away.
🔹 A 10-15 minute immersive break can do wonders—just don’t let it turn into a binge!
Resources & Links Mentioned:
📌 https://titanof.tech
📌 Recommended Reading on Cognitive Breaks & Productivity
📌 [Follow me on LinkedIn / Twitter / Other Socials] @johnbarker78
Join the Conversation!
💬 What’s your go-to method for breaking through mental blocks? Drop your thoughts in the comments or tag me on social media!
🎧 Subscribe & Review!
If you enjoyed this episode, leave a review and share it with a friend who needs to hear this! Don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode.
#TechProductivity #GamingBreaks #ProblemSolving #ResetYourBrain #WorkSmarter #TechTips
Transcript
you get stuck on technology related problems that you just
Speaker:can't seem to break through?
Speaker:Go play a video game.
Speaker:It's my secret trick when I get stuck on problems.
Speaker:If you've worked in the technology industry in any sector for any
Speaker:length of time, you've clearly run across a complex technical challenge
Speaker:that you found difficult to solve.
Speaker:It's made you want to beat your head against the wall, throw your keyboard
Speaker:and laptop or computer across the room, or in my case, rip my hair out.
Speaker:Well, one of the problems that you face if you're working on 1 of these.
Speaker:Significant technology problems, and you're not making
Speaker:any bit of progress at all.
Speaker:You face burnout within that particular moment on over focusing.
Speaker:So, in your case, that could be a moment where you've been
Speaker:staring at code for hours.
Speaker:Or an error message that you get that the system is generating
Speaker:that just doesn't mean anything.
Speaker:We've all probably have seen some level.
Speaker:That's just you have an error.
Speaker:I've legitimately seen those only to realize After you've sit there
Speaker:and worked on the problem and worked on the problem and worked
Speaker:on the problem You're just stuck
Speaker:but going and playing a video game can help you get unstuck And part of this is
Speaker:from the mind's ability to do background processing Particularly your subconscious
Speaker:is continuing to work on a solution
Speaker:So taking a break to go play a video game and stepping away from that
Speaker:problem allows your subconscious to continue working on the solution in
Speaker:the background, a background test, like on a computer, and it's in a way, it
Speaker:would be similar, like, taking a walk.
Speaker:But we'll talk about that in a second that if you have.
Speaker:Some quick bursts of fun, and in my case, I would use
Speaker:Apex Legends, and I'll explain why,
Speaker:or Online Chess.
Speaker:This can help reduce those stress levels, and reduced stress levels will help to
Speaker:enable more effective problem solving.
Speaker:Gaming can create a flow state.
Speaker:That refreshes your mental focus and you get a kind of a fun
Speaker:dopamine hit in the meantime
Speaker:and the reset at least in my case anyway, and I think probably in anybody else
Speaker:that actually tries to give this a try.
Speaker:Can lead to new ideas once you return to your tech project, or typically what
Speaker:happens to me is another branch of Avenue for troubleshooting actually occurs in
Speaker:the middle of the match that I'm playing.
Speaker:I recently went through this about a week prior to recording this particular video
Speaker:on a new AI tool that I was trying out.
Speaker:It was some open source software to help with character consistency
Speaker:using AI generated images.
Speaker:And never used the platform before, never used the software before, and it
Speaker:required a bunch of different plugins and workflows that I got from other people.
Speaker:It was all open source software, and once I get it completely all set up,
Speaker:and if you looked at the workflow on the screen, there would be red boxes.
Speaker:And if you've got all the red boxes to go away, meaning that all the plugins were
Speaker:installed properly, all the workflows were connected properly, You should
Speaker:have been able to start generating the images that you wanted, and this would
Speaker:be a different way of doing it than using something like mid journey or chat
Speaker:GPT with with Dolly a tool like this.
Speaker:This is something that I was able to install or trying to install,
Speaker:at least on my local computer.
Speaker:Well, after going through the process, I was just running into this crazy problem
Speaker:where the images weren't generating.
Speaker:It was stop at different spots.
Speaker:And come up with an error code that I just could not figure out what was going
Speaker:on and this went on for about 2 hours.
Speaker:I was spending a lot of time on the knowledge basis.
Speaker:I was spending a lot of time trying to see if there was any support
Speaker:documentation and getting kind of stuck in different spots, not know where to go.
Speaker:I said, I need to go do something else.
Speaker:I need to walk away.
Speaker:And have my mind occupied with something that I considered more fun.
Speaker:So I ended up firing up chess.
Speaker:com and I ended up playing a 10 minute match.
Speaker:As we're getting to the end of the time limit, it hit me.
Speaker:This wasn't a software problem.
Speaker:This was a hardware problem.
Speaker:Just what type of hardware problem.
Speaker:And once I started digging deep into it, I realized that I was
Speaker:limited on the amount of VRAM.
Speaker:On my video card, it was causing the process to stop, but it just wasn't
Speaker:a clear error message with the way the program was set up in the way the
Speaker:workflows and connected themselves.
Speaker:So, by taking that break, it allowed my mind to completely focus on a
Speaker:different task and subconsciously it was working in the background.
Speaker:I never even thought about it because such a poor chess player that I was
Speaker:trying to focus on beating the opponent that I was playing in at the moment.
Speaker:But.
Speaker:Kept it to a 10 minute game.
Speaker:So how would you set up your own gaming break effectively?
Speaker:The first thing you want to do is you want to identify if you
Speaker:actually even need a break.
Speaker:Some parameters to set around yourself are if you're making consistent progress,
Speaker:meaning you've solved a particular error message in a code or some other
Speaker:configuration, whatever it is that you may be working for, but you're
Speaker:still getting a domino effect, meaning you fixed one error message that may
Speaker:have led to another error message.
Speaker:Keep going, keep going.
Speaker:As long as you're making progress and generating new errors, only use
Speaker:this and take this particular break.
Speaker:If you're really, really stuck on something, you've been at the
Speaker:computer screen for a, an hour or two.
Speaker:I can't find anything in the forums.
Speaker:I can't find anything in knowledge bases.
Speaker:I just have made no progress.
Speaker:There's no new errors.
Speaker:Or I keep finding myself stuck in the same loop, and I'm getting the same error
Speaker:message over and over and over again.
Speaker:Then,
Speaker:once you realize that, you're stuck, you've been at it for a while, you're
Speaker:beating your head against the wall,
Speaker:make sure that you have a time limit.
Speaker:I mentioned at the top that I would play Apex legends or more recently chess as a
Speaker:way for having that mental distraction.
Speaker:And the reason and I'll go back to Apex legends because I did that one for years.
Speaker:A match with last no more than 10 to 15 minutes.
Speaker:If you made it all the way through to the, to the way the, the battle
Speaker:Royale system work and you played the full match and you were one of
Speaker:the last teams in there, roughly 15 minutes was about the time period.
Speaker:And in that period of time, that was typically enough to give my mind a rest.
Speaker:And that new idea will pop up, but you want the break set to a small time limit
Speaker:so it doesn't become where you're binging where you're like, the dopamine of the
Speaker:game itself starts taking over control.
Speaker:You need to be cognizant of that.
Speaker:Once the idea pops into your head, if you have 1, you also want to choose something
Speaker:that's fully engaging again.
Speaker:The quick immersive games.
Speaker:A lot of people will play fortnight call of duty.
Speaker:Maybe even it's a puzzle game that's on your mobile device to walk away
Speaker:something that fully distracts your mind from what you're working on.
Speaker:To give it a mental break.
Speaker:So you're basically filling up your mind with something that
Speaker:hopefully you have found fun that you're not actively thinking about.
Speaker:And then after you've taken the break, 10 or 15 minutes, jot down any new ideas that
Speaker:may have come up, particularly mid game.
Speaker:Again, that's typically how this happened to me.
Speaker:And then dive right back into it.
Speaker:You've got a fresh perspective.
Speaker:I would also encourage you that if you're doing this.
Speaker:That you're not sitting at the same desk, the same table, the same
Speaker:chairs, the same computer that you're actively working on, make sure you've
Speaker:transitioned yourself to a new environment
Speaker:this is not an excuse to go play a game every time you've
Speaker:run into a minor roadblock.
Speaker:Oops, I got an error message.
Speaker:I need to go play.
Speaker:No, no, no.
Speaker:That's not how this works.
Speaker:And if you need to, use timers or alarms to keep yourself disciplined.
Speaker:Now, some people will say, Hey, that sounds like a waste of time or
Speaker:I don't like playing video games.
Speaker:You can do other stuff.
Speaker:Steve Jobs was famous for taking walks to solve problems or
Speaker:even take his meetings walking
Speaker:walking is great stimulation on top of exercise.
Speaker:One of the things that I would say, when it comes to solving a
Speaker:more technical problem that you've been stuck on for a while is.
Speaker:walking in and of itself.
Speaker:You're not having your mind and brain focused on an unrelated task fully.
Speaker:So if you don't like playing video games, but you've got something
Speaker:else that's integral to your life.
Speaker:Let's say you've got a hobby playing an instrument.
Speaker:Go set yourself up a 15 minute session.
Speaker:I found gaming is a powerful way to reset my mind, tackle that in the moment stress.
Speaker:It sparks some creativity when trying to solve technology problems.
Speaker:Let me know in the comments below if you've got another tip or trick
Speaker:when you get stuck on something that you have found useful, that
Speaker:somebody else may find useful as well.
