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Cognition

3 Ways to Have Smarter Ideas

Think like a scientist by applying structured curiosity to everyday problems.

Source: Andrew Neel/Unsplash

Better processes lead to better thinking.

I'll show you how mini-systems can make your thinking and problem-solving smarter.

If you're an overthinker, these processes will help you use your strengths without getting stuck in the weeds. They'll help you balance thoughtfulness with systematization.

Improve your thinking with these methods—think like a scientist and apply structured curiosity for sharper insights.

1. Connect anything interesting or surprising you encounter to your most important problem.

As humans, we have an exquisite and powerful, built-in interestingness detector. When we encounter an unexpected idea or make an unexpected observation, we feel a sense of creative spark, positive surprise/confusion, or intrigue.

We've evolved this detector to learn, avoid danger, and spot opportunities. Our emotions are an incredibly sophisticated tool for this.

Here's how I apply this principle:

Whenever something triggers my interestingness detector—no matter how unrelated it seems to my work—I ask myself how it might apply. For example, I ask "How could this apply to self-improvement?" I ask how anything interesting I read, hear about, or see could apply to self-improvement.

This process is similar to the Feynman method. "You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind… Every time you hear a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your 12 problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while, there will be a hit..."

Twelve problems is excessive, but you can adapt the method to fit. Identify your "favorite problem" e.g., what's core to your work, and let anything that sets off your interestingness detector collide with it.

Use surprise, curiosity, or intrigue as your cue to trigger this questioning process.

  • Practice this when you're out in the world—not just at your desk.
  • The less related the topics, the better. Look for deep similarities rather than surface-level connections.

As an example, here's where I connected an idea from biology to self-improvement: "In biology, evolved constraints (e.g., cell membranes) shape how work is done. They focus energy and resources efficiently, instead of letting them be wasted on randomness or chaos. The constraints you create in your life should perform the same service for you."

2. Ask ChatGPT, or your favorite AI bot, for batches of 15 diverse ideas.

Connecting seemingly unrelated concepts is one aspect of better thinking. Another is generating more ideas.

To get in the habit of generating a higher volume of ideas, whenever you're generating ideas, use ChatGPT as a thinking partner and ask it to chip in with batches of 15 ideas.

A common cognitive bias is for us to believe that, in any idea generation context, the best ideas will come first, and later ideas will be lower quality. This is called the Creative Cliff Illusion. However, this cliff doesn't exist, we only perceive it does. Our best ideas often come after our tenth idea. And the best part is that when we believe our best ideas are yet to come, our ideas become higher quality across the board, including our earlier and later ideas.

Through experimentation, I’ve found asking ChatGPT for 15 ideas is a sweet spot. It generates high-quality ideas in this batch size, and this is the limit of what I can cognitively sift through after each response. Test for yourself.

Don't limit this technique to difficult problems. The key to mastering it is actually the opposite—you should routinely apply it to mundane problems. For example, you might ask it, "Give me 15 ideas for how to approach having less boring lunches—not specific lunch suggestions, but diverse approaches to the problem."

Improve your ability to use this technique by practicing with low-stakes, low-complexity problems. This is how you'll gain fluency and agility with the technique the most quickly. You'll be better at the technique when you need it for higher stakes, higher complexity problems.

A few other notes about how to use this method:

  • You'll often get more interesting answers if you ask it for ideas of how you could approach a problem, rather than the fixes themselves. For example, 15 ways you could approach the problem of wanting less boring lunches, not for 15 specific lunch suggestions.
  • Sometimes when I ask it for a new batch of 15 ideas, I tell it which idea I liked most from the previous batch, and why.
  • Often, I explicitly ask it to include some dopey ideas.
  • The core part of the process is that I ask it for batches of 15 ideas, but within this, I mix things up. I usually specifically ask for diverse ideas, so I don't get repetitions on the same theme.

If you're prone to overthinking, having a higher volume of ideas is a core method for improving the quality of your thinking, and one that plays to your strengths: your willingness to think.

3. Identify the questions that lead to your most productive rabbit holes.

Following curiosity trails is another aspect of having good ideas. The tools you use for this process may vary, but the goal is to identify questions that lead you down productive rabbit holes, and eventually new thinking discoveries.

I watch a lot of interview-style podcasts on YouTube, especially those featuring thought leaders, scientists, and non-fiction authors discussing their work. I use YouTube Premium and an Android phone, which gives me the option to ask questions to their AI tool about the videos.

As I watch, the questions I routinely ask are:

  • "Who are the people mentioned in the video? Include brief context about who they are and why they are mentioned. Be exhaustive."
  • "What quotes from others are mentioned?"
  • "What numbers or statistics are mentioned?"

You can use this technique with other tools. For example, you could ask the same questions about YouTube videos or podcast episodes using NotebookLM. This tool allows you to paste in a YouTube video URL or upload an mp3 from a podcast, and doesn't require any subscriptions. Many AI tools will allow you to upload mp3 files from podcasts and ask questions about the content.

Riff off these methods

The broader point of this article isn't necessarily for you to copy these exact micro-processes. You absolutely can copy and paste these directly into your own life. However, you can also use these templates as inspiration for systematizing your own thinking processes.

By using micro-processes to systematize your curiosity, you can enhance your problem-solving and creativity. And you can do so without adding much mental overhead. For those who overthink, these strategies will help direct your thinking in a more focused, productive, creative way.

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