The Power of Shower Thoughts
alexanderell.is
The Power of Shower Thoughts
1–10 of 82 posts
Re: The Power of Shower Thoughts
#2Somehow when I take a break to do something mindless, showering being especially high on the list, I often am able to step back from the problem and get some perspective. Yesterday I realized I was making the solution to complex by separating concerns and could combine them and greatly simplify the task. Five minutes in the shower yielded more forward progress than three long days of coding. It doesn't always help, but it does often enough that the daily shower is a productive time. More often it's just a mental code review and I catch and fix a bug, that works best if I go strait from coding to the shower with all the pieces of code fresh in my mind.
Re: The Power of Shower Thoughts
#3I am pretty sure activities that have low brain requirements, be it the shower, running and the likes allow our brains to declutter, clean up all the mess of the constant stimuli we are assaulted with, especially from tech, but also noise if you're a fellow urban dweller.
On a similar note, I realised pen and paper -away from any computer, works wonders to organise my thoughts.
Re: The Power of Shower Thoughts
#4Somehow when I take a break to do something mindless, showering being especially high on the list, I often am able to step back from the problem and get some perspective. Yesterday I realized I was making the solution to complex by separating concerns and could combine them and greatly simplify the task. Five minutes in the shower yielded more forward progress than three long days of coding. It doesn't always help, b…
When I work from home I often take a break to do laundry or do the dishes. It often helps me to get clarity on issues I have been working on.
Re: The Power of Shower Thoughts
#5I'd love to hear from John Carmack on this, it would be interesting to hear that he rarely has these 'shower' moments because he is always operating with great perspective.
Re: The Power of Shower Thoughts
#6I wonder if the habit of listening to audio at faster than 1x speed has the side effect of muting the brain’s ability to do “background thinking.” I have noticed that when I take a day or two off from listening to a podcast or audiobook on my commute I have better focus and creativity — but the sample size is small and I do t know if this is merely coincidence.
Re: The Power of Shower Thoughts
#7I'd love to hear from John Carmack on this, it would be interesting to hear that he rarely has these 'shower' moments because he is always operating with great perspective.
I would expect the opposite instead. I don't know him personally and this is conjecture based on what I've read about him, but his being totally immersed in a particular subject, to the extent of going to a thinking retreat in a cabin, is the best way to reach those Eureka moments.
I've written in the past about this, let me copy an old comment of mine:
"Let me share a tip that might work for you as well then: some times you will procrastinate heavily because you're have a hard problem with no solution in sight. You'll want to make some semblance of progress, but you just can't sit down and concretely work on it.
It's by design! Your subconscious keeps working in the background, thinking outside the box until one day out of nowhere you get the solution right before your eyes.
I'm not sure it's possible to think outside the box if you're not procrastinating, since you need other types of unrelated input for your brain to make a different type of association and reach a conclusion from another perspective.
I'd like to read more about this phenomenon but has been one of my best tricks up my sleeve in my career. Recently I've been trying to write down a complex piece of code, the corner stone of my application critical to the whole business. I've spent weeks on that problem, tried and failed to design a working solution, spent hours reading papers during working time instead of writing anything, browsing HN mindlessly, until after 2 months, out of the blue at 4am looking at cat pics on reddit I found the answer. And I'm now enjoying this newfound wave of productivity until my next hard problem"
Re: The Power of Shower Thoughts
#8Somehow when I take a break to do something mindless, showering being especially high on the list, I often am able to step back from the problem and get some perspective. Yesterday I realized I was making the solution to complex by separating concerns and could combine them and greatly simplify the task. Five minutes in the shower yielded more forward progress than three long days of coding. It doesn't always help, b…
The commute to work helps me as well. I think this is something that can get lost for people who work from home. Too many people are so focused on heads down LOC/hour and forget that the software is art. I've worked with good engineers that can't touch type. Designing effective maintainable solutions is hard and should be the thing that people focus on.
Re: The Power of Shower Thoughts
#9Am a big fan of this approach, I've slipped into this intense focus / distant reflection practice over the years without knowing why or how it worked.
It's wonderful to see it formalised and be able to communicate its value.
Naps, walks and gentle bike rides hold the answers to so many puzzles.
Re: The Power of Shower Thoughts
#10Somehow when I take a break to do something mindless, showering being especially high on the list, I often am able to step back from the problem and get some perspective. Yesterday I realized I was making the solution to complex by separating concerns and could combine them and greatly simplify the task. Five minutes in the shower yielded more forward progress than three long days of coding. It doesn't always help, b…
The commute to work helps me as well. I think this is something that can get lost for people who work from home. Too many people are so focused on heads down LOC/hour and forget that the software is art. I've worked with good engineers that can't touch type. Designing effective maintainable solutions is hard and should be the thing that people focus on.
The commute is one of the only thing I don't miss from working home, if I want to clear my mind I have plenty of better options, I can walk through the neighborhood, take a shower or do some house chores.