#ThinkfullyHabits — #ThinkfullyHabits

#ThinkfullyHabit: Imagine it

Most of us have no problem imagining things happening. However, it's often in a free-flowing, unconstrained, escapism way. We may be less likely to apply the same imagination in a more deliberate and constructive way. Yet, applying imagination in order to work through a decision and watch the implications and consequences unfold in our mind’s eye, can be incredibly revealing. Even better, it’s something we can do with very little time and resource. It’s about creating a new habit of consciously thinking through a sequence of events and imagining how a situation may unfold.

Depth ThinkingThinkfullyNovember 12, 2020Mindsets

#ThinkfullyHabit: Go natural

The world is full of stories of nature inspiring real-world problem solving - sometimes in life saving ways. Business legend and philanthropist Bill Gates gives one of his favourite examples as being how the kangaroo inspired baby care. In the 1970’s two Colombian paediatricians, Edgar Rey and Hector Martinez, were struggling to care for pre-term infants due to inadequate and insufficient incubators in Bogota, Columbia. They turned to the natural world and took inspiration from how kangaroos care for their young.

Link ThinkingThinkfullyOctober 23, 2020Problem solving

#ThinkfullyHabit: Remix it

Oranges came about from crossing the pomelo fruit with the mandarin. The story didn't stop there. The pomelo was then re-mixed back with the orange in order to give us the grapefruit, which was determined as a distinct fruit in its own right in 1837.

Interesting outcomes come from mixes. The same is true when we mix ideas together – particularly when we work with others to do so.

Link ThinkingThinkfullyOctober 23, 2020Creativity, Teams

#ThinkfullyHabit: Be a beginner

When we are an expert in something we can become trapped by our own expertise, entrenched in old routes and reassured by what we have known to be true in the past. It has been described by some as the ‘curse of knowledge’, and it can hinder us exploring new ways of doing things.

Expert ThinkingThinkfullyOctober 23, 2020Bias, Mindsets

#ThinkfullyHabit: Think in multiples

When tackling a problem, you may find yourself struggling to find the solution. This may be the case particularly when you are facing a wicked, fuzzy or ambiguous problem where you don’t have enough information or data about it, or it’s an unknown future. In these instances, looking for the single solution may be the wrong focus. Instead, these might be the times that it will help to think of multiple solutions.

Depth ThinkingThinkfullyOctober 23, 2020Stuck

#ThinkfullyHabit: Get stuck in

Getting stuck can feel like a failure. It’s often the point when we give up, try something else or accept defeat. However, what if this is the very point when we should do the exact opposite?

The journey to new discoveries often includes a point near the beginning where people working on a problem are actually pretty stuck. As David Perkins, research professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education outlines; “struggle and insight go together.”

ThinkfullyOctober 23, 2020Stuck

#ThinkfullyHabit: Go extreme

Sometimes it’s hard to think beyond the familiar, even if the desire to do so is there. Going to the extremes can be a way to get beyond typical, obvious and predictable ideas. Going to extremes not only allows you to see ideas more clearly, it can help expose assumptions that are holding your ideas back and can rapidly open up the window of possibility in your mind. It’s not that all the final ideas themselves need to be extreme solutions, but the way to get to the best ones may be.

Depth ThinkingThinkfullyOctober 23, 2020Creativity

#ThinkfullyHabit: Follow slow hunches

Not all ingenious ideas come about in a flash.

Not everyone experiences Eureka moments such as those made famous by Archimedes the Greek mathematician and scientist who worked out that the way to tell if the king’s crown was made of pure gold or of cheaper metal was by the amount of water it displaced. His Eureka moment is said to have come about whilst stepping into his bath and realising that the amount of water displaced was proportional to the weight of the object immersed in it.

Click ThinkingThinkfullyAugust 19, 2020Creativity