The Top Idea in Your Mind

Paul Graham's July 2010 essay argues that what you think about in the shower — the topic your mind drifts toward when allowed to wander — matters far more than we recognise. Almost no hard problem gets solved without this kind of unforced, ambient thinking, and at any moment you have one "top idea" that absorbs nearly all of it while others starve. The disaster, Graham notes from personal experience (raising money and disputes were his top ideas for two long stretches), is letting the wrong topic claim that slot.