Try These Thinking Strategies From Different Professions If You Get Stuck
“I started thinking very hard about this case,” says the dude at The Big Lebowski when he discovers that the other Lebowski was holding the ransom. If you think that this phrase means “good mood” in the language of our time, then try these twenty-five useful thinking tools, collected from different professions.
Motivational writer Scott H. Young lists mental models associated with twenty-five different professions: the economist often thinks about how people respond to stimuli, and the philosopher considers the “unexpected consequences of intuition.” A good teacher can understand what it means not to know what he knows, and a good journalist checks facts before drawing further conclusions from them. But it’s not about recapitulating professions. The point is to remember and use these mental models to solve your own problems.
If you are creatively blocked, you may not get an answer from an artist model, but from an anthropologist who learns by immersed in an unfamiliar culture. Or, you can take an entrepreneurial approach to rapid prototyping: quickly test a variety of ideas to see which are the most promising.
If you’re overthinking, you can take a programmer’s approach and try to automate your tasks – even if that means finding a general solution that only does every task decently. If you’re having trouble leading a group, you may need to think like a salesperson, figure out what other people want, and work backwards to match that to what you want.
Young’s list is not exhaustive, so you can borrow your own mental models. And these models can be surprisingly suited to your problems. I have one creative project that requires more of a soldier’s approach: “Routine and discipline prevents deadly mistakes.”
Twenty-Five Useful Thinking Tools | Scott H. Young