Good ideas develop slowly over time. They start out as rough ideas that have bits of greatness, but lack pieces to the puzzle. The key is to keep them alive in writing and develop them as you make sense of more things.Commonplace books are an early example of a system where people developed ideas over time. They involved transcribing interesting ideas from the books and articles they were reading.

Slow hunches

If you go back and look at all sorts of innovations throughout history, the lightbulb moment almost never really exists. It’s almost always this long process where somebody has a fragment of an idea and it sits in their head for a year, or two years, or ten years before it turns into something really useful.

The trick to having good ideas is not to sit around in glorious isolation and try to think big thoughts. The trick is to get more parts on the table.

The book How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens (<a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.sloww.co/how-to-take-smart-notes/" dir="ltr">Book Summary</a> | 🔒<a href="https://www.sloww.co/how-to-take-smart-notes-book-how-to/" rel="noreferrer noopener" dir="ltr">Premium Summary</a> | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" href="https://www.amazon.com/How-Take-Smart-Notes-Nonfiction-ebook/dp/B06WVYW33Y?dchild=1&amp;keywords=how+to+take+smart+notes&amp;qid=1633579903&amp;s=books&amp;sr=1-1&amp;linkCode=ll1&amp;tag=slowwco-20&amp;linkId=893c5702d414be0f85c29f932f4c8f54&amp;language=en_US&amp;ref_=as_li_ss_tl" dir="ltr">Amazon</a>) brought Steven Johnson’s “slow hunch” to my attention.Ahrens says:<UL><LI>“Steven Johnson, who wrote an insightful book about how people in science and in general come up with genuine new ideas, calls it the ‘slow hunch.’ As a precondition to make use of this intuition, he emphasises the importance of experimental spaces where ideas can freely mingle. A laboratory with open-minded colleagues can be such a space, much as intellectuals and artists freely discussed ideas in the cafés of old Paris. I would add the slip-box as such a space in which ideas can mingle freely, so they can give birth to new ones.”</LI></UL>This piqued my interest, so I did some deeper digging into the slow hunch.<figure><img width="597" height="298" src="https://www.sloww.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Sloww-Slow-Hunch-Steven-Johnson-1024x512.jpg" alt="Slow Hunch Steven Johnson" srcset="https://www.sloww.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Sloww-Slow-Hunch-Steven-Johnson-1024x512.jpg 1024w, https://www.sloww.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Sloww-Slow-Hunch-Steven-Johnson-300x150.jpg 300w, https://www.sloww.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Sloww-Slow-Hunch-Steven-Johnson-768x384.jpg 768w, https://www.sloww.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Sloww-Slow-Hunch-Steven-Johnson-506x253.jpg 506w, https://www.sloww.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Sloww-Slow-Hunch-Steven-Johnson-504x252.jpg 504w, https://www.sloww.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Sloww-Slow-Hunch-Steven-Johnson-1536x768.jpg 1536w, https://www.sloww.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Sloww-Slow-Hunch-Steven-Johnson-800x400.jpg 800w, https://www.sloww.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Sloww-Slow-Hunch-Steven-Johnson-600x300.jpg 600w, https://www.sloww.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Sloww-Slow-Hunch-Steven-Johnson.jpg 1600w"></figure><h2>Where Good Ideas Come From: The “Slow Hunch” with Steven Johnson (Short Read)</h2><figure><img width="199" height="300" src="https://www.sloww.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Where-Good-Ideas-Come-From-Steven-Johnson-199x300.jpeg" alt="Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson" srcset="https://www.sloww.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Where-Good-Ideas-Come-From-Steven-Johnson-199x300.jpeg 199w, https://www.sloww.co/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Where-Good-Ideas-Come-From-Steven-Johnson.jpeg 315w"></figure>Steven Johnson explains it the following ways:<UL><LI>“If you go back and look at the historical record, it turns out that a lot of important ideas have very long incubation periods. I call this the ‘slow hunch’ … A lot of great ideas linger on sometimes for decades in the back of people’s minds.”</LI></UL><UL><LI>“Change can be fast. The most important ideas that trigger change are often very slow in their development—what I call the ‘slow hunch’ … If you go back and look at all sorts of innovations throughout history, the lightbulb moment almost never really exists. It’s almost always this long process where somebody has a fragment of an idea and it sits in their head for a year, or two years, or ten years before it turns into something really useful.”</LI></UL><UL><LI>“I’m really interested in innovation and technology, and at the same time I spend a lot of my recent career talking about things like the slow hunch—ideas that need time to develop and incubate (sometimes for a decade). In a sense, those two things seem to be in conflict with each other because you have this pace of change that’s accelerating … but you also inevitably need that longer development to come up with truly important ideas … The secret to slow hunches is keeping them alive.”</LI></UL><h3>Slow Hunch Videos</h3>Here are a few short videos of Steven Johnson explaining the slow hunch:<div class="embed-placeholder" data-type="youtube" data-id="5GFVIFDok6c"></div><div class="embed-placeholder" data-type="youtube" data-id="hyOtQTFyfIE"></div><div class="embed-placeholder" data-type="youtube" data-id="0af00UcTO-c"></div>You May Also Enjoy:

This idea is similar to mind gardening. It's about articulating your thoughts and developing them as you expose yourself to new ideas. I use Evernote for developing them and Deepstash for a constant supply of ideas

Short read about the slow hunch — ideas that need a long time to develop and incubate — from Steven Johnson, author of the book Where Good Ideas Come From

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Reading & Writing

problemsolving

Problem Solving

creativity

Creativity

The book How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens (<a href="https://www.sloww.co/how-to-take-smart-notes/">Book Summary </a>| 🔒<a href="https://www.sloww.co/how-to-take-smart-notes-book-how-to/">Premium Summary </a>| <a href="https://www.amazon.com/How-Take-Smart-Notes-Nonfiction-ebook/dp/B06WVYW33Y?dchild=1&keywords=how+to+take+smart+notes&qid=1633579903&s=books&sr=1-1&linkCode=ll1&tag=slowwco-20&linkId=893c5702d414be0f85c29f932f4c8f54&language=en_US&ref_=as_li_ss_tl">Amazon </a>) brought Steven Johnson’s “slow hunch” to my attention.

<ul><li>“Steven Johnson, who wrote an insightful book about how people in science and in general come up with genuine new ideas, calls it the ‘slow hunch .’ As a precondition to make use of this intuition, he emphasises the importance of experimental spaces where ideas can freely mingle. A laboratory with open-minded colleagues can be such a space, much as intellectuals and artists freely discussed ideas in the cafés of old Paris. I would add the slip-box as such a space in which ideas can mingle freely, so they can give birth to new ones.” </li> </ul>

This piqued my interest, so I did some deeper digging into the slow hunch.

Where Good Ideas Come From: The “Slow Hunch” with Steven Johnson (Short Read)

Steven Johnson explains it the following ways:

<ul><li>“If you go back and look at the historical record, it turns out that a lot of important ideas have very long incubation periods . I call this the ‘slow hunch’ … A lot of great ideas linger on sometimes for decades in the back of people’s minds.” </li> </ul>

<ul><li>“Change can be fast. The most important ideas that trigger change are often very slow in their development—what I call the ‘slow hunch’ … If you go back and look at all sorts of innovations throughout history, the lightbulb moment almost never really exists. It’s almost always this long process where somebody has a fragment of an idea and it sits in their head for a year, or two years, or ten years before it turns into something really useful.” </li> </ul>

<ul><li>“I’m really interested in innovation and technology, and at the same time I spend a lot of my recent career talking about things like the slow hunch—ideas that need time to develop and incubate (sometimes for a decade) . In a sense, those two things seem to be in conflict with each other because you have this pace of change that’s accelerating … but you also inevitably need that longer development to come up with truly important ideas … The secret to slow hunches is keeping them alive .” </li> </ul>

Here are a few short videos of Steven Johnson explaining the slow hunch:

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What is the Slow Hunch? (Steven Johnson)

Slow hunches

STEVEN JOHNSON

STEVEN JOHNSON

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