If this topic is ice cream, over the past few months I’ve written about its many different flavours. But at the end of the day, it’s still all ice cream.
I’ve recently found myself working through some particularly ambiguous problems. When the problems don’t have an obvious answer, it’s easy to procrastinate, and in the worst case, fall into inertia.
When I sense a tough problem coming up, I try to get something down on paper on the first day. Sometimes it’s a scribble on a physical piece of paper. Other times it’s a rough but structured set of thoughts in a Google Doc. I try to give my best answer on day one, and make highlights and comments on all the things that I’ve probably got wrong and need to think through in more detail.
Then I sleep.
I trust that tomorrow’s brain is going to turn up and have something meaningful to contribute. I trust that my subconscious is going to have worked overnight to process the problem. I also trust my co-workers and let them in on the work in progress. I let their feedback guide, push, and challenge the work.
Rarely does something truly important need to be completed in a few hours. Creating space and time for the subconscious to work, trusting tomorrow’s brain, and the brains of others, is a high probability way to root out any logical errors in our work.