The Top Idea in Your Mind
July 2010I realized recently that what one thinks about in the shower in the morning is more important than I'd thought. There's a kind of thinking you do without trying to. I'm increasingly convinced this type of thinking is not merely helpful in solving hard problems, but necessary.
- ▪July 2010I realized recently that what one thinks about in the shower in the morning is more important than I'd thought.
- ▪There's a kind of thinking you do without trying to.
- ▪I'm increasingly convinced this type of thinking is not merely helpful in solving hard problems, but necessary.
Paul Graham — Essays files mainly under blogs. We currently carry 219 of its stories.
Opening excerpt (first ~120 words) tap to expand
Want to start a startup? Get funded by Y Combinator. July 2010I realized recently that what one thinks about in the shower in the morning is more important than I'd thought. I knew it was a good time to have ideas. Now I'd go further: now I'd say it's hard to do a really good job on anything you don't think about in the shower.Everyone who's worked on difficult problems is probably familiar with the phenomenon of working hard to figure something out, failing, and then suddenly seeing the answer a bit later while doing something else. There's a kind of thinking you do without trying to. I'm increasingly convinced this type of thinking is not merely helpful in solving hard problems, but necessary. The tricky part is, you can only control it indirectly.
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Excerpt limited to ~120 words for fair-use compliance. The full article is at Paul Graham — Essays.