Why thinking in the shower may be an ideal model for "creative pause" | Hacker News Reader

Why thinking in the shower may be an ideal model for "creative pause"

cameronmoll.com

66 pointsdanw35 comments

I have most of my best ideas in the shower. I first noticed it when I was doing my own nanowrimo ripoff (cowoh.org) in 2002ish and I'd have my good plot twists while I was sorting out the shampoo.

Unfortunately, it's one of those things you can't talk about because the moment you do it some smart ass will make a rude remark about the sorts of ideas you might have in the shower, and that kills of the momentum of the interesting thing you were about to leap into describing. It is a reliably frustrating opener. The first comment to that post is a case in point.

Another place I have great ideas is in the kitchen when I'm doing the dishes. This goes back to a period where I had a horrible job and the only satisfaction I used to get in a day was coming home and washing my families dishes. I'd go so far as to say that my claim on those dishes, twice a day, was what got me through that hellish, soul-destroying period and subsequent breakdown.

So now I tell people that I had a great idea while I was doing the dishes, even though odds are that it was in the shower. It's just easier that way.

Good writeup. I think the benefit of a creative pause is that it makes you reload which makes you requestion some assumptions. Reloading can be expensive though.

I wonder if this will get more hackers to shower regularly...

I find thinking on the bus works best for me. I now actively don't carry any books with me there. The combination of listening to some music I like and retreating into my own mental bubble brings up all sorts of interesting ideas. Instead of books, I now carry a notepad.

* Distractions are minimized, including noise

* The body is engaged in a monotonous, mundane, or repetitive activity, freeing the mind to think about other things

* The environment is changed

Another activity that fits these requirements is running. It also has the added benefit of physical exercise.

Bicycling works better for me--smoother, less painful. The tricky part is pulling out a notepad and writing something down while dodging cars and jumping curbs.

Anyone need some iPhone appdev inspiration?

You know the iPhone headphones, the ones that have a little microphone built into the side? It acts as a button, as well (I'm not sure if it's a soft button, though.)

I imagine that, if it were a soft button, someone could write, quite simply, a voice recorder program whose recording was toggled by that button. You could leave music running in the background, with the recorder running in the foreground, then press the button (both temporarily pausing the music at starting the recording), dictate your thought, and press the button again, at which point the music would resume.

Same here. If I am stuck on something I hop on my bike and ride for a while. I have a nature path less than 1 mile away. I try deliberately not to commit anything to memory while I think. I find that if I try to remember stuff too hard it stops the flow. Sometime I have problems "recreating" what I came up with but on balance I have found this way of solving problems best.

Showers are also relaxing. Exercise isn't too much so. When I'm exercising properly, I can't really think too well or deeply since I'm exerting myself and my energy and focus is towards the exercise. Leisurely walking & bicycling in a quiet neighborhood is a different story.

I've found long-distance running to be very relaxing, since you don't go at a fast-enough pace to be hurting.

I generally take long showers (sometimes 45mins+), and this is exactly why. I just stand there in the water and think. Some people think it's weird, but there's no better time to design software or work over a problem you're having.

Same here! My mom always used to get on my case about it too.. I just hope karma doesn't kick my ass for wasting all that water.

Same - but I try and avoid it now (water is a bit of a restricted/precious resource here).

Do you not run out of hot water?

I have a bath every day about 2pm for this very purpose :/ As strange as that sounds.

bubbles?

Usually a book, sometimes my macbook perched on the toilet showing a DVD. Quite often an ice lolly.

Too much info?

Actually that reminds me of a funny time - I was reading a book in the bath, while eating a "mars ice cream" - chocolate covered ice cream. Took a bite, and the thing cracked all over the place, fell in the bath. Melted chocolate everywhere. My wife happened to come up, peer in the bathroom.....

"It's not what it looks like honey.... :-/"

Way too much information! ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDI15t8xa7U&NR=1

I'd agree this is TMI.

But... "honey"?

Careful, I hear there are people who get really anal about words having more than one meaning.

don't forget rubber ducky. he'll listen when you try to explain monetization strategies.

Why 2pm? TMI?

I don't know... maybe it's due to it being "getting up time" in the US (I live in the UK, but travel to the bay area every so often).

Probably more likely though just a nice break to the day to stop, have a think, and read a few more pages of a book.

When I'm working on something difficult, I stay at home, and often average 3 or 4 showers a day.

This is why you should live in the UK! Just stand outside in the rain ;)

Descartes did a lot of his thinking in bed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descartes

Once try too hard to have a creative pause deliberately with what ever magic/shower formula you came upon it will evaporate. In the wise words of olbermann "Good night and good luck"

One of my friends (maybe he'll reply to this) gave his high school class president graduation speech about how he does his best thinking on the toilet.

Sure did, though I'm not sure if that's the case anymore -- I have this great chair now...

1. Start a company 2. Shower 3. Profit!

Step 3 should read ???

How true this is... I love how my girlfriends' never get it... they think I'm just 'doddling.' Little do they know that if I had enough time (and a big enough hot water heater)... I'm sure my thinking in the shower would facilitate my destiny to conquer the world.

Then I, for one, welcome our new wrinkly-pink overlords.

Shower ideas are great, but taking long showers to get ideas is criminally wasteful. Try this instead: go into the bedroom, make it really dark, light a candle or something and play one of those 'pink noise' tracks: rainforest, ocean, etc. Or take a walk.

If you're not actually cleaning yourself--that is to say, if you're already clean, not if you're lazy--then there's no reason to be using any more clean water. There could be set up a switch that, when flipped, moved from a "use/dispose" model to a "use/recycle" (under the literal meaning of the term "re-cycle") one. It would, of course, build a small buffer at the beginning so it wouldn't just be spraying the last of your shampoo all over you, but that would be the last of the new usage for the day, and it could last as long as you want--only as dirty as a bath, but in motion!

why? the faster we waste resources the more motivated we'll be to come up with new solutions. necessity is the mother of invention.

Using psilocybin responsibly once every few months would be a more ideal mode for a creative pause.

The stupid fearful superstitious monkeys who run the stupid government don't want people at an ideal level of creativity and optimism, so you can't legally access the best way to have a creative pause. So, we get the result of people who know how to best foster creativity and optimism being outlaws, and people who study psychology for a living produce bullshit work like this. This kind of thing is aimed at turning you from an uncreative monkey to a slightly less uncreative monkey.

Why not wake up from your programmed modes of thinking and be a free human being instead? I guarantee you, give me 10 people and I could safely induce a better 'creative pause' with a 2 day camping trip where mushrooms were used safely, then this guy could with 100 showers.

We're at a place in human history where we are either going to get serious about fixing the problems on spaceship earth, or we're going to destroy it. Fixing the problems requires huge amounts of optimism and creativity. We don't have time for people (especially entrepreneurs) to be thinking a shower is the best way to safely enhance creativity. We can solve the problems that might destroy our planet if we safely use what the outlaws know in the right way. We can't if we're all taking showers thinking that will be what makes us creative.

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