Sunday, December 19, 2010

Answers Come at Unexpected Times

I was cleaning up my blog today and rediscovered a Paul Graham blog posting from July 2010 that I had shared via Google Reader. I started skimming it to remind myself why I shared it as this sentence jumped out at me: "I'd say it's hard to do a really good job on anything you don't think about in the shower."

Any of my former managers, and current manger, will recognize the phrase, "on my drive in today, I figured out how to ______." I use it frequently. In fact, one of my managers suggested he was going to have me drive around randomly for an afternoon when we were posed with a particularly difficult question.

Graham defines ambient thought as "a kind of thinking you do without trying to." When driving, taking a shower, mowing the lawn or any other time when something else occupies your mind. Answers come at unexpected times.

Read Graham's full blog post here, The Top Idea in Your Mind.

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