# Habits for effective thinking (The 5 elements) ## Earth (learn the fundamentals) - Master the basics[^1]: write a summary on a topic you know well. Identify gaps in your knowledge. look for weaknesses. take the time to fill in the gaps. [[Teach to learn! (The Feynman technique)|Presentations]] is a great way to detect gaps. - Sweat the small stuff: When trying to solve complex problem, take a small subproblem and inspect it from different angles. Then, try to see if you can use your understanding of the subproblem to solve the bigger problem. - Uncover one essential: When learning a complex subject, look for one core idea. It does not have to be THE core idea but a core idea. Every complex topic is compose of several core ideas. ## Fire (learn from failure) - Fail on purpose instead of staring at a blank screen: when you try to solve a complex problem, sketch a wrong solution. Now you have something to work on. First look for good ideas you wrote. Second, improve what you wrote. think what is wrong with your solution and try to fix it. - Fail nine times: when you try to solve a complex problem, tell yourself you have nine times to fail and that you will succeed at the 10th time. - Bad days good lesson: bad days hide important lessons. next time you have a bad day, do a conscious effort to extract positive lesson from those non-pleasant experience. - Exaggerate until failure occurs: take an idea you are familiar with that is working. Now, increase one of its aspects until the idea stop working. Analyze the failure point and think on the meaning of the constraint you found. ## Air (Be your own Socrates) - Better questions: when struggle with a difficult question, think if you are trying to answer the wrong question and by improving it you can find what you need. Try more focused questions that have productive conclusions. - Ask meta questions: when starting a new task, ask what is the goal? what benefits flow from the task? Keep those answers in mind. They will keep you focused, give you motivation during hard time of the project. ## Water (Seeing the flow of ideas) - iterate ideas: when writing an idea, iterate and make it better. notice how ideas are build one on top the other and flowing... - Think back: when a new item land on your table - ask yourself what is the history of it? how it evolved? this will help you understand that ideas evolve and help in developing ideas. - extend ideas: Take a good existing idea and try to extend it. - Once you have it, see if you can improve it: Take a solution you have and think on different and better one. assume you have a mistake or missed opportunities. ## Wind (keep evolving) - Expert perspective: When you studying or solving a problem, write down what is your approach or strategy to solve it and then think how an expert would approach it. Try to think what approach will require less effort. - adopt the habit of constantly improving your thinking by integrating the above techniques into your day to day. Reference: [[@The 5 elements of effective thinking]] ## Created 2025-06-21 20:56 [^1]: [[Understand the fundamentals]]