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The science of having ideas in the shower

nationalgeographic.co.uk

31–40 of 178 posts

Re: The science of having ideas in the shower

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recent visit to my in-laws in Germany.

Ah so elderly couple in Germany allows you to conclude that the whole of Europe showers less than your household, a household which is also representative of the whole American continent, did I get that right?

Ahem… whoossshhh

Re: The science of having ideas in the shower

#33
post #6

Is there more research on how boredom relates to creativity in general? I've been wondering recently about how my default in most cases is to look at my phone (reddit, social media, texting). That must detract from my net new ideas. I know many a child driven to weird ideas, fun games, and general creativity from lack of anything else to do. It's probably a spectrum (reading reddit/HN/etc. is likely to introduce new…

I'm not sure "boredom" is the right way to characterize the state. Deliberately cultivating this quiet time for creativity is one possible aspect of a meditation practice. David Lynch has an interesting book about that, called Catching the Big Fish.

Re: The science of having ideas in the shower

#34

“If you’ve ever emerged from the shower or returned from walking your dog with a clever idea or a solution to a problem you’d been struggling with, it may not be a fluke.” Did we really need someone to tell us this? Do people just assume everything is a fluke until some higher authority tells you otherwise?

Occasionally I read something where I don’t really learn anything new, but the way the author succinctly describes a concept or idea clicks with me. It might be giving something a name. It might be describing a vague notion in a way that reaffirms something. I’ve been thinking about. In any case, it’s helpful and insightful and helps me organize my thoughts and build upon that.

Each person is different. We all learn different things at different times. Everything in this article may be 100% obvious to you right now. But if you read this a number of years ago, you may have found it insightful. Others are at different parts of their journey. What is obvious to you, is obvious only to you.

Re: The science of having ideas in the shower

#35
One of the best parts of remote work is when I have a tough problem I can just walk into the bathroom and take a shower to solve it - I just need to make sure my hair is dry before the next meeting. I never could have done that pre-Covid since everyone would have wanted to know where I was if not sitting at my desk, and the few places I worked with gyms came with a long list of co-workers I’d rather not be showering with!

Re: The science of having ideas in the shower

#37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recent visit to my in-laws in Germany.

Ah so elderly couple in Germany allows you to conclude that the whole of Europe showers less than your household, a household which is also representative of the whole American continent, did I get that right?

I'm sure like everything else, times have changed and Western Europe and the US are now more similar (if not the same) in their shower habits.

But I'd like to provide another anecdote just for fun, from 6 years of living in Spain beginning 20 years ago. It was, at that time, certainly considered unique to shower every day, in a mid-sized northern Spain city. Unless every other friend in my residencia was weird in this regard, which is unlikely.

Interestingly, they also had a communal pool. Swimming to them rendered a shower that day unnecessary. Note -- I didn't notice any notable signs of bad hygiene, though.

Anyway I'm sure there are studies that show we're all converging on similar routines!

Re: The science of having ideas in the shower

#38
Hmm, it's a mixed quality of ideas. Sometimes it sounds very revolutionary, but then given a full thought around it starts to be just alright. Sometimes I think I finally solve a way of doing thing in code, turns out it's good, for now. Some realization are incredible though like .. why you were so dumb in front of computer.

Re: The science of having ideas in the shower

#39

Anecdotally, Americans tend to shower more often than Europeans. Perhaps this explains why more tech innovation tends to happen in America these days? I suspect a major cause of the shower gap is energy price gap, leading one to conclude that cheap energy increases innovation!

Ahh funny my country is very hot, in summer I'd shower 3 times (I wish for 4 sometimes). It's too hot to come up with any idea. It's only thankful to have water run through.

Re: The science of having ideas in the shower

#40
For starters there's less [performance] anxiety while taking a shower of doing mundane tasks.

In a way it's the "monday night quarterback" meets the "you missed a spot over there" syndrome; the farther away we are from the point where the rubber meets the road, the more we can observe objectively and have higher level of thinking.

The problem at hand is how to juncture the thinking/intention with proper action.

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