All problem solving methods like “the 5 whys” or “root cause analysis” want you to solve problems at the very root.

When you are stuck on a problem, it’s not always the best idea to attack it head on. Instead, find away around it.

Businesses should actively report and seek out problems, and use them as a source of innovation. Just like Karl Popper proposes in his epistemology of science.

Working when you are dead tired not only produces poorer output, it actively makes it worse than if you did not work. The thing about zombies is that they have no brain. Don’t let that be you.

Niche is not about size. It’s about specificity.

When you start solving a problem, are you just following the smaller and smaller branch? Solving a problem is best solved by looking at the whole tree

If I have think about what that data is, or what it should be, or what it will be like when I’m about to do a thing - it’s too complex and too opaque.

1 Practical Tip

We all make todo-lists or put it in the calendar. But do you really know clearly what you are going to do, if it is the best way to do it, and if it is the right thing to do?

1 Practical Tip

The 9-5 workday is optimized for the factory, around the notion that input equals output. 8 hours of work produces 8 hours of results.

In our effort to build great things, we often encounter complex problems. The best way to solve a complex problem is never to make a complex solution. By making complex solutions we often paint ourselves into a corner, and introduce new problems. It’s better to make simple solutions. And to do that, we have to overcome complexity. We are looking for simplicity on the other side of complexity, not naive, uninformed simplicity.

To get to the bottom of any problem, we have to get past assumptions. The best way to do that, is to ask the questions that have “obvious answers” - stupid questions. Combine this with the 5 why’s - ask a new stupid question for each answer 5 times. That should thoroughly confuse the client or yourself, or whoever is experiencing the problem.

When looking at a process that is complex, slow or has many steps, we often try to simplify each step or the flow between the steps.

You’ve likely experienced the feeling of suddenly having the answer to your problem while you were not thinking about it; maybe in the shower, on a run, or on the bus.

In any business, industry or area there’s always a certain way things are done -  simply because they’re just done like that. There may be problems with the way things are done, but they’ve been there for so long, people no longer recognize them as problems. They’re just there, a part of the way things work.

How can you get the insights you’ve had once a year every year, every day?