www.fastcompany.com: Simple decisions are best made using cold, hard logic. This way, we can work through the incremental steps that lead to an answer. But the same isn’t true for complex decisions, ones that require more creativity in meshing together a web of interconnected ideas. These decisions can be impossible to work through with logic and reason alone. That’s why we need to tap into the proven power of our subconscious mind.
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As a busy college student, I strive to be productive at most times. I recognize that by carefully allocating pockets of time to specific tasks, I can continue to check things off of my to do list. Yet when I encounter an assignment that simply stumps me, it sets my time schedule off. This has caused me to panic in the past, but as this article points out, sometimes the best thing to do is to step away for a while. Distracting myself with a nap or a meal or an hour of yoga is sometimes exactly what I need to jump back into work. This is also why many professors recommend the practice of starting an assignment as soon as its given, even if it’s just a simple outline. This gets one’s mind working, thinking, delving into the idea, even it’s just “on the back burner.” This article refers to this phenomenon as the Zeigarnik Effect, and has proved to have produced many Eureka moments.
This article describes the effect, here named, “scatterfocus” can have on solving problems. I have definitely encountered this before, especially as I begin to take courses that present problems that do not have obvious solutions. There is often a pressure to have ideas immediately as soon as a problem crops up but I have often found, as this article suggests, that it is not always necessary to have an idea immediately. It is often more productive to begin to work on a problem and, if the solution is not obvious, to let it go and let your mind work on it in the background. I actually find that it is counterproductive to just think actively about something for a long period of time if no ideas are coming and I think this article is a good reminder to step back from problems and let your mind work on them for you.
This article brings up a good point and supports my philosophy that to do my best work along with being committed and focused on the job you need to step back and take time to be a person as well. This article obviously isn’t suggesting that avoiding a problem is the means to fixing it, the individual obviously must initially invest the time into the project in order to have it become active in your mind so you can subconsciously be thinking about it. I actually employ this method quite frequently with work and assignments, I’ll frequently look over a project when I have a free moment and then put it aside and continue to mull it over mentally thinking of different solutions. Then later, I’ll go and be able to approach the project with a bunch of ideas ready to be flushed out more thoroughly. I find it is an effective method for me and also supports the concept of separating yourself, to some extent, from the work your doing. Experiencing different things is only going to help you think of more creative solutions both now and in the future.
Even though I didn’t necessarily learn anything new from “How to solve complex problems (by not focusing on them”, Chris Bailey did a great job of validating what I already believe. When reading Chris’s descripcion of the Zeigarnik Effect, I truly resonated with his depiction as someone diagnosed with ADHD. Which, validated in this article, doesn’t just mean I can’t focus (which, fun fact I can, but I don’t need to go into that), but can also mean, as Chris points out “ the Zeigarnik effect can do something stunning when we scatter our attention and let our minds wander”. For, especially in the case of complex problems, things can’t always be solved with just straightforward logic alone, a lot the time things can require “more creativity..” and need to be approached by “meshing together a web of interconnected ideas”.
As a non linear thinker I often only think and work in this way, but often doubt this as a good thing when comparing my methods and approach to those of others. So this article in the end, was definitely beneficial to me, I need to remember and take into account the way I work, so I can efficiently accomplish solving problems.
This article makes a lot of very good points. I find the phenomenon to be very relevant to my career and my life in general. I remember there were times when I would be doing complex calculus problems for homework, and I would leave frustrated and confused from Purnell at 2am. Then as soon as I got on the bus to go home and zoned out for a bit, I would immediately know how to finish the problem set. This happens all the time in my life, and it’s why I try to always start my assignments early (this semester excluded, thank you project management). But I also think there is a balance to be had here. With a math problem set, there’s a hard finish. You crack the code, circle the number, and you’re done. But for more ‘real world’ challenges, like with shows or interpersonal troubles. It’s hard to know when you’ve gotten to your eureka moment. Sometimes you find a good solution in the shower, but find an even better one after you think really hard about it. It’s great to say “give yourself lots of time” and “take time to not think about the issue” and that works on the big stuff. But sometimes for your own mental health you need to solve something and check it off in your head. And that’s ok too.
It can get really frustrating when you don't have an answer to a problem that needs to be solved. It is easier said than done to allow your mind wander when you have an issue at hand. This article is an interesting article but I would like to read about how we can take our mind off the current problem. Personally, when I can't find an answer to a problem I have to stay focused and keep working on it because I am not able to let my mind wander until the problem is solved. I will find it very helpful to find out a way to help me take my mind off problems and focus on something else.
This article definitely makes you think about how you go through you every day routine. I don’t know if I fully agree with the ending point of the article that your most creative ideas come from not thinking about whatever project you need to work on. I definitely think that working through the creative process of failure will help you figure out how to solve different obstacles. Though, I have had some of my best creative breakthroughs while doing a mindless task. The article also dwells on the fact of spending time thinking about the past, present, and future. In high school, as well as college, we are always told to think about our futures. What we do everyday affects the outcome of our lives socially and academically. That may hinder some creative processes or it may strengthen others, but finding what works for you is the most important point.
Talk about an article that threw me down the rabbit hole. I spent a good two hours digging into understanding the Zeigarnik effect and how it came about and what it truely focused on. At first, I thought that it might be closely related to the incubation concepts, and I discovered that its similar but not honestly the same. The Zeigarnik effect focus is keyed towards people focusing on the uncompleted and that they remember uncompleted tasks better than that of completed tasks, hence the laying awake thinking I forgot to do something. However, the article seems to mix the idea of the Zeigarnik effect with the concept of incubation from the creative process where the idea is to leave a task or problem and work on something unrelated thus allowing one's mind to slowly churn on ideas in the background allowing for moments of clarity upon returning to the question. Overall I think the article poorly communicates what it set out to do because of its lousy blending of concepts.
I think this is a really good way to show the value of starting projects early. If you start working on a project early in the process, rather than closer to the due date, you have time to set it aside. For me, though, that doesn't always lead to the breakthrough. Often, I have a “Eureka” moment when I'm working on a different aspect of the same problem. The trouble for me, also, is that my revelations tend to not be as earth shattering as the famous examples listed. If I'm in the shower, and I figure out that I should reorganize a diagram in a certain way, the idea might not leave the shower. I know people who always (even in the shower) have a way to write something down available to them, but I'm just not that person.
This article was extremely interesting. I found many of the concepts to affect me in everyday life and I hope now that I have read this article I can harness it for my benefit. The ways I intend to do this is in two steps. The first is to continue to let the ideas flow once I think I have found one. When working on the shoe project when I realized I needed a new idea I was stuck I had what seemed like 100 ideas before i started and them once i picked one the other ideas just floated away and when i really needed them they were gone. Maybe if I write down the ideas I have in the beginning of a project it can inspire my idea when I may lter have to rethink my ideas. The second idea I have used before but it may have been classified under procrastination rather than idea building. If I get stuck: stop. This counter intuitive idea puts into play the concept in the article by indirectly focusing on the problem rather than direct focus. I hope to harness the Zeigarnik principles with these ideas.
I think this is article is very interesting in the concept it is trying to hit on. However, I think it focusing too much on the individual and not on a group of people. Collaboration is a very important thing which ideas and development of ideas. Of course there are situations where it really is up to an individual to create and execute a solution to a complex problem, but I think more often that not a group of people are working towards an answer. This summer I read a book that talked about ideas in a similar way in the way that they enter and leave our minds. What this article and the book both do is focus so much on a single person and an idea, instead of how important bouncing ideas around and brainstorming is when coming up with complex solutions. I do like the principles of Zeigarnik presented.
I gravitated to the article just due to the title, “how to solve complex problem by not focusing on them”. In this article they talk about the eureka moments in your life. Eureka is a saying people normally use to describe the feeling they get when they have realized something or seen something that they haven’t been able to see before. It’s basically when everything you’ve been thinking about becomes clear and makes sense,“Thanks to the Zeigarnik effect, we store any problems currently stumping us at the front of our minds. As a consequence, we connect each new experience to these unresolved problems, desperate to unearth novel solutions”. The Zeigarnik effect is the way in which our mind chemically (but simplified) solves problems and obstacles in its way. I found this article very interesting because I’ve always wanted to learn more about the human brain and the ways in which is operates. The effect is compiled of a couple of different things: a wandering mind, a problem/trigger, and experience. These three are what create and solve a problem according to the Zeigarnik effect.
I liked this one a lot, and I love how many comments it has because I think that the people who become Design and Production students at CMU, or students at CMU in general like to over think. We need a pros and a cons list and any decision we make had to come from a strong analyzing of the facts presented to us. Anything else is hard to wrap our heads around and can make decision making very difficult. It is true that things do tend to have more clarity after you stop thinking about them for a while, but honestly I have no idea how to force myself to do that. Sometimes I go to the gym, or I watch TV but if something is truly weighing on me then I am always thinking about it a little. I would hope that an adjustment to this forget about it until it becomes clear strategy for people more like me would be to make your list and go over all the details and then know that science says eventually it will come to you.
Humans have always been looking for ways to be more productive without having to work as hard, it is not being lazy, we are simply driven by efficiency. This article dives into the world of subconscious thinking and how our brain helps us even when we are not expecting it to. I learned that the brain stores difficult problems in the frontal cortex and so when you stop working on that problem, your brain is already automatically applying what you do in your day to day life to that problem trying to find a solution. The article talks a lot about “Eureka moments” and how you always seem to come up with your best ideas when you are least expecting or find solutions to problems whenever you are in the shower or walking on your way to lunch. It is suggested that this may happen because as your brain is taking in the world around you, what you are seeing, smelling, feeling, and piecing together little bits of information to rework a problem until it finds a solution.
I’ve noticed the phenomenon described in the article in my daily life and it was interesting to see it put into words! The way our brains work is really fascinating, and I think the idea that we subconsciously analyze ideas and use that ability to solve complex problems. This was definitely helpful for me to read- we run into complex problems all the time, and I tend to fixate on one and solve them logically one step at a time, then move on. When that doesn’t work I end up frustrated and overwhelmed, and this ultimately derails the process. Working subconsciously while doing something simpler could definitely help limit this! I also think that while the article seems to be written for STEM fields, it definitely applies to theatre and creative fields as well. Getting inspiration for an idea is unfortunately not usually as easy as sitting down and logically thinking hard about it. My creative ideas tend to come while I’m doing something totally different, for the same reasons described in the article. This was an interesting read and hopefully this strategy will help me manage my college workflow!
As a child (and sometimes still today), I was told that my trains of thought are difficult or tiring to follow, that I lose people halfway through a tangent. My brain and mouth have a tendency to wander without my realizing it, and I used to look for ways to rein it in, as per the advice of my fifth grade teacher to “stay pithy.” When I first stumbled upon this article, I wondered how it was relevant to theater. I realized that as creative people, our minds wander habitually, constantly, before landing on the jackpot moments that make a show click. I love and live for these moments that are magically born without strenuous problem-solving and frustration, and it’s fascinating to read that they’re backed by real psychology. While being pithy can be helpful in some situations, I don’t think I’ll be restricting my creative wanderings for the sake of concision anymore.
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