Alive Quote by Steven Johnson
“Keeping a slow hunch alive poses challenges on multiple scales. For starters, you have to preserve the hunch in your own memory, in the dense network of your neurons. Most slow hunches pass in and out of our memory too quickly, precisely because they possess a certain murkiness. You get a feeling that there's an interesting avenue to explore, a problem that might lead you to a solution, but then you get distracted by more pressing matters and the hunch disappears. So part of the secret of hunch cultivation is simple: write everything down.”
About This Quote
Source Book: Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson, 2010
Cultivating slow hunches requires capturing fleeting, vague insights before they fade, then revisiting them over time.
In simple terms: Save vague ideas before they disappear.
Key Takeaway
Record and revisit ideas regularly.
Themes
creativity
memory
focus
discipline
Mood
curious
reflective
Type
advice
philosophical
When to use this quote
- research projects
- product development
- personal brainstorming
- long‑term problem solving
Key Concepts
cognitive science
idea incubation
knowledge management
Questions to Reflect On
- How do you ensure you revisit recorded hunches?
- What systems help keep vague ideas accessible?
A Different Perspective
Ideas may become stale if not periodically refreshed.
![“Hunches [are] just messages from the subconscious, which [is] thinking furiously all the time and processing information we have not consciously noted.” quote by Dean Koontz](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/c71/dean-koontz-118_hunches_hunches-are-just-messages-from-the-subco_2150686.jpg)
