Nevermind singing in the shower

I do some of my best research thinking in the shower.

Last week, I started one of the research proposals I need to write before my supervisor gets back from vacation but I've been stuck for days. It's outside my area of expertise (most of what I do is), so I was struggling with the hook for this proposal. What is the hole we can fill? What makes this proposal unique and how can I convince our funders that this is the project we need to do?

This morning, in the shower, it all comes to me. Many holes we can fill, many hypothesis we can test and most of all, how very important an impact this research can have. I'm excited to get to work and get the rest of this proposal draft written today!

This isn't the first time I've had a stroke of brilliance in the shower, when I was dissertating almost all of my breakthroughs happened in the shower. I get stuck in my thinking sometimes and I need to just walk away, let it fester, work on something else and before I know it some morning while I'm conditioning my hair it comes to me. The best part is that I almost never even realize that I'm thinking about research!!

I don't know if it's the routine of showering that helps bring these ideas to the surface, or maybe I was actually working it out during my sleep, but there is definitely a connection between showering and idea generation for me.

So, fellow bloggers do you have any strange places that bring out your brilliance?