I have lots of ideas in the shower. Perhaps it's because I'm just waking up from sleeping on stuff, perhaps it's because the water cleans impurities out of the air, meaning that my brain gets fed a better quality of oxygen (I've seriously heard this theory before). But whatever the reason, I often find myself having ideas when I'm in the shower.
The most annoying thing is when that idea is the repeat of a shower that I had a few days earlier. Then I'm kicking myself for not remembering it once the day was underway properly.
And that's where I got an idea for having a whiteboard in the shower.
I used to scuba-dive. It's lots of fun – but you try communicating with a fellow diver when you're underwater… it can be a pain to say the least. To get around this, divers carry slates and pencils. Pencils can write underwater you know. Not on paper of course, but on slate it's just fine.
So I figure that I should keep a few of these slates and a pencil in the shower, so that I can make a note of ideas.
But better still would be a whole whiteboard. Thinking standing up is good for all kinds of reasons – lots of people agree with me that when you're thinking through a problem, standing next to a whiteboard really helps. But of course, a whiteboard marker doesn't work in the shower, and besides, you've got the age-old problem of not being able to transfer your ideas off the whiteboard easily.
So that's where a large Tablet PC would be great. It would have to be a rugged one (I saw a video ages ago about a Tablet PC that you could use underwater), and it would have to be firmly attached to the wall, and connected (wirelessly?) so that I could print my ideas, email them, check the stock-prices and weather, etc… But most importantly, I could get my ideas down when they occur, think through them, even collaborate with other people (that would seem wrong I'm sure), and really make good use of that time. Naturally (no pun intended until now that I read it back) there would have to be a timer on the shower so that water-conservation didn't become too big an issue. But it would stop that 'forgetting time' that occurs between when I have the idea and when I have finished the 'getting up' process.
Obviously it wouldn't have a webcam!