Shower Ideas

Like many people, I find myself peeing thinking in the shower. It’s one of the only times during the day I can escape all the devices, distractions and busyness that comes from city living. I’ve generated a ton of ideas and made a lot of decisions from the confines of a shower.

One day I hopped in the shower and minutes later decided that this was the day I would propose to my then-girlfriend. Once I dried off and got dressed, I went to my hometown’s excuse for a mall to pick out my idea of a decent ring. That night I popped the big question standing atop Mount Washington as we overlooked the beautiful city of Pittsburgh.

She said yes.

Now I had no intention of asking such a massive question when I woke up that morning, but the shower provided me an important moment of clarity and planted the seed for a decision that would ultimately change the rest of my life.

More recently, my mind drifted in the shower as I let my mind spin like a slot machine. I somehow arrived at the thought of QR codes (what, you don’t think about QR codes in the shower?) and how it would be funny to make fun of the many stupid applications of our ugly 2D friends. Later that day I contacted Craig Villamor, who has a great perspective with this sort of thing, and we set up WTF QR Codes shortly afterwards.

It’s been a lot of fun seeing the blog get quite a bit of attention, laughing at people’s submissions, and collaborating with Craig on the project.

All this from a stupid random thought in the shower.

The moral of the story is to capitalize on those random thoughts that are bound to emerge in the mundane moments of our lives. And make plans to follow through with your ideas once you dry off because you never know where they might take you.