One of my favorite quotes on idea generation is from Madmen (tv series): "Just think about it deeply. Then forget it, and an idea will jump up in your face."

I once (re)discovered a mathematical theorem in the shower. (My wife shakes her head at such behavior...)

I proved a lemma while shampooing as well. It gives immense pleasure to run away naked and wet, grab a pencil, and scribble some nonsense in a paper.

I have a waterproof notebook for situations just like these, though it got mostly used to sketch out public talks - during showers I would often think about the points I wanted to make, and suddenly, new insights would dawn on me.

Someone should build a wifi-enabled touchscreen shower door for saving shower thoughts to the cloud.

Not nearly as cool, but sometimes a tricky client problem that's been bothering me seems to solve itself in my head, and I try to frantically diagram it or write it in the condensation on the inside of the shower door to make sure it checks out and to help me remember it. It's happened several times.

> Not nearly as cool

Quite the opposite, in fact.

Probably because showering is the one time you can't be stuck to your phone screens.

I don't think it has anything to do with screens per se - it's about being alone and free to think, while not being able to do anything else. Other people are as much, if not more, distracting than screens - hence the time spent in shower or on the toilet is so frequently mentioned as the source of valuable insights.

A guy I work with showers with his Galaxy S8, or at least that's what he said he does.

It was true before smartphones came onto the scene.