Hamming said the same thing:
Most great scientists know many important problems. They
have something between 10 and 20 important problems for
which they are looking for an attack. And when they see a
new idea come up, one hears them say "Well that bears on
this problem." They drop all the other things and get after
it. Now I can tell you a horror story that was told to me
but I can't vouch for the truth of it. I was sitting in an
airport talking to a friend of mine from Los Alamos about
how it was lucky that the fission experiment occurred over
in Europe when it did because that got us working on the
atomic bomb here in the US. He said "No; at Berkeley we had
gathered a bunch of data; we didn't get around to reducing
it because we were building some more equipment, but if we
had reduced that data we would have found fission." They
had it in their hands and they didn't pursue it. They came
in second!
The great scientists, when an opportunity opens up, get
after it and they pursue it. They drop all other things.
They get rid of other things and they get after an idea
because they had already thought the thing through. Their
minds are prepared; they see the opportunity and they go
after it. Now of course lots of times it doesn't work out,
but you don't have to hit many of them to do some great
science. It's kind of easy. One of the chief tricks is to
live a long time!
"You and Your Research"
http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~robins/YouAndYourResearch.html