The Top Idea in Your Mind
I recently read Paul Graham’s essay The Top Idea in Your Mind, and it struck a chord with me as a PhD student. Here’s my summary and reflections.
The Core Idea
Graham’s central insight is simple but profound: what you think about in the shower matters more than you realize. We all have a “top idea” that our minds drift toward when we’re not actively focusing on something else. This ambient thinking is not just helpful for solving hard problems—it’s necessary.
The tricky part? You can only control it indirectly.
Why This Matters
When a problem becomes your top idea, it gets the benefit of your subconscious processing—those moments in the shower, during walks, or right before sleep. Other ideas are starved of this resource. This is why it’s a disaster to let the wrong idea occupy this precious mental real estate.
Graham shares how fundraising hijacked his thinking when running startups. Once you start raising money, it becomes the thing you think about in the shower. Everything else suffers. He observes the same pattern with professors who have become “professional fundraisers who do a little research on the side.”
Two Ideas to Avoid
Graham identifies two types of thoughts that are particularly harmful:
- Money matters - They demand attention by their nature. Getting money doesn’t happen by default.
- Disputes - They have the same “velcro-like shape” as interesting ideas but without the substance. Even Newton wasted years on pointless controversies.
The Newton example is striking: the problem wasn’t the 14 pages he wrote defending his work, but having “this stupid controversy constantly reintroduced as the top idea in a mind that wanted so eagerly to think about other things.”
My Reflections as a PhD Student
This essay resonated deeply with my PhD experience. I’ve noticed that my most productive research periods coincide with times when I genuinely want to think about my research problems. When administrative tasks, paper deadlines, or interpersonal conflicts occupy my mental space, my research suffers—not because I lack time, but because I lack that ambient thinking.
A few lessons I’m taking away:
- Guard your mental real estate. Be intentional about what problems you allow to become urgent. Not every email needs an immediate response.
- Choose your battles wisely. Academic disputes can be intellectually engaging but ultimately hollow. As Graham notes, “turning the other cheek turns out to have selfish advantages.”
- The shower test. Ask yourself: what do my thoughts keep returning to? If it’s not what I want to be thinking about, something needs to change.
As researchers, we often measure productivity by papers and grants. But perhaps the more important metric is: what’s the top idea in your mind?
What’s the top idea in your mind right now? Feel free to reach out at persdre@gmail.com—I’d love to hear your thoughts.