It’s hard to do a really good job on anything you don’t think about in the shower.

Graham’s line uses the mundane image of “thinking in the shower” to point to a serious standard for creative and intellectual work: the best results usually come from sustained, intrusive attention rather than occasional effort. If a problem follows you into unstructured, private moments—when you’re away from meetings, screens, and deliberate “work time”—it suggests you’re engaging it deeply enough for subconscious processing to contribute. The quote also implies that excellence is less about raw talent than about the habit of continuous reflection, where insights emerge during downtime because the mind has been primed by persistent curiosity and care.