
Why thinking in the shower may be an ideal model for "creative pause" - danw
http://cameronmoll.com/archives/2008/11/showering_and_thinking/
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cturner
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.

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

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swombat
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.

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ph0rque
* 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.

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khafra
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.

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derefr
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.

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dmpayton
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.

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mdolon
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.

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

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jfornear
bubbles?

~~~
axod
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.... :-/"

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abstractbill
_Way_ too much information! ;-)

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

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

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kqr2
Descartes did a lot of his thinking in bed.

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

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bluishgreen
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"

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nsrivast
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.

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

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

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mdolon
Step 3 should read ???

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petergroverman
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.

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aristus
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.

~~~
derefr
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!

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

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LPTS
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.

