This post details a strategy I employ to optimize one of my scarcest resources: brainpower.
- Don't think, go with your gut.
- Be surprised at how wrong you are.
- Figure out why your gut was right after the fact.
If you're a beginner, your gut is probably wrong. Experts can skip to step 3, otherwise,
This step is key. If you're not surprised, and you don't examine the ways in which you are wrong, you will not be able to use this technique to be right. If you find yourself spending time thinking about how right you are, you have not mastered this strategy.
Being surprised opens your senses, and puts you in one of the most effective positions to take in information. Now you are responsible for incorporating this information into your conceptual model of the specific problem domain and constructing as many metaphors across domains as possible.
With your newly minted conceptual model, you have strengthened your gut. Go back to step 1. If you were wrong and not surprised, you'll find yourself being wrong over and over and over again.
If you've made it to this step, you understand the value of being surprised and being wrong. You also have an outstanding conceptual model of the problems you are dealing with. Enjoy being right, you've earned it. Ironically, at this stage, you've also learned that being right isn't all it's cracked up to be.