How You Can Improve Your Logical Thinking and Problem Solving Skills
One day I was reading a journal article about doctors and their prescribing habits. There seem to be a correlation that doctors tend to prescribe new medications after a drug company rep had visit them. This one doctor yapped on how smart doctors are and that when a drug rep provide them lunch, this had no influence at all. I chuckled to myself since this doctor was obviously a fool. He fell for several mental biases, such as liking, availability heuristic and reciprocity. Clearly, the doctor has never read ‘Persuasion, by Robert Ciladini but the drug rep has.
The moral of the story is that improving your logical thinking and problem solving skills has more to do with tools at your disposal rather than doing repetitive practice of procedures that make you appear smart. For example memorising a multiplication chart. As a matter of fact, David Epstein in his book “Range” found that those with the widest experiences were the best problem solvers. For example, a comic book artist who has drawn various genres, in general drew more compelling comics for his audience than a comic book artist focused on a single genre.
So, here are 5 tips to improve your logical thinking and problem solving skills.
1. Develop a problem solving toolbelt
Charlie Munger calls this a latticework of mental models. I just call it a toolbelt and it is as it sounds. Have a collection of problem solving tools for whatever discipline you are in. For instance, I’m a data analyst by trade so I have skills in R, Python and SQL. When I get a large data set, I have an idea of where to load the data and which language to manipulate it in. As another example, I’m also a big fan of calisthenics. At first I couldn’t do a muscle up despite being able to do straight set of 10 pull ups. Then, I took up weight lifting and this open up a new set of tools for me to do progressive overload and increase power in my pull up. I began doing deadlifts and weighted pull ups. Now, I can do several muscle ups!
2. Use your problem solving toolbelt outside of its domain
This is also as it sounds. If you have am understanding of your tools in one field, then see if you can use them in another. For example, bodybuilding requires a lot of variety to increase muscle mass and size. It’s about changing the weight, sets, repetitions and angles all in a random fashion. But, you’ll be surprised that you can apply this same logic to solving scientific problems. For example, I once aced a scientific exam involving biology, chemistry and physics not because I read and re-read text books, rather I did problem solving questions in a random order. For instance, after solving a physics question, I would then answer a chemistry question, and so on. As a matter of fact, I managed to see how physics, chemist and biology all integrate as a science using this technique.
3. Admit that you’re not smart
Logical thinking and problem solving often fail when people are too overconfident. By having a bit of humility, you’ll learn that you need to answer more questions to solve problems. As answers come in, you’ll be able to connect the dots. You’re more likely to get to the right answer to a problem through connecting several ideas rather than forcing your single idea as the true answer. This is like forcing a cube through a circle hole. No matter how hard you push, you won’t get the cube through unless you chisel the circle into a square shape — but this is just reinforcing confirmation bias.
4. Don’t believe that the puzzle must be solved the text book way
If you’re given a riddle, just because there is one standard method to answer a question, you don’t have to accept that it’s the most logical answer. For example, what is next 1, 4, 9, 16? The logical answer to this problem is 25 since the numbers are going up by squares of 1, 2, 3, 4 etc.
But you know what? 4–1=3,9–4=5, 16–9=7, so you could infer the next number to add is 9, so 16+9=25. You’d still get to the right answer of 25 logically and wouldn’t even need to understand squares.
5. Tell stories and create metaphors that suit your audience
The Feynman technique tells us there is no better way to know if you understand something than if you explain it to a non-expert. I take this a bit further, if you can create a metaphor or story out of what you want to explain, then you truly understand it. For instance, I was trying convince someone why it was logical to invest in such a niche company. I used this simple story: “Whenever I find a five dollar note on the floor I feel ecstatic — I can buy a burger with this. Imagine having a tool that can find money randomly. This company sells metal gold detectors, so just imagine how many people would feel ecstatic after finding gold. It’ll be like finding a five dollar note all over again.”
Conclusions
Finally, I just want to add that logical thinking and problem are domain specific. What one audience thinks is logical, another may not. For instance, a cardiologist may think a certain heart medication (eg. ACE inhibitor) would be perfect for a patient to bring down the patient’s heart rate but the nephrologist would say the medication is illogical as it would worsen kidney damage. Which is the logical answer here? Answer: It’s too hard to know!
Never miss one of my stories! Click here to Subscribe.
Stuck behind a wall and want to read more stories? Join up to Medium Here.
If you’re active on Twitter, follow me on Twitter Here.
