Yesterday I tried to see if I could “hack” problem solving skills (and optimism) – somewhat in the spirit of Challenging the Difficult. It didn’t work.

In short, extremely unscientific approach involved I would think about a real goal of mine, think about an “impossible” arbitrary task in detail, then return to the real goal and see if it was “easier” or my planning was better.

For the real goal, I set a 5 minute timer and wrote down my best guess about the steps I’d need to take to achieve a this seemingly unobtainable goal. In this case: getting commissioned by a certain billion dollar company to make a certain kind of artsy video. I’ve had this goal for years, but it doesn’t feel any more obtainable now than it did four years ago. 

After the timer, I turned my mind to an arbitrary and seemingly impossible goal. Claude suggested to me a prototype for a “quantum” satellite communication system that’s made entirely from household products. Rather than dismissing it as a stupid idea, I spent half an hour thinking about seriously executing this. Taking the attitude as if I was starting tomorrow. I asked myself questions like, How and where would I learn about satellite communication, quantum computing, radio transmission, building circuits? Where would I build the prototype? How would I budget for it? What kind of “household products” would most likely have the components I need and so on? How does quantum entropy change the way data can be decoded?

Then I went back to the real goal, the video commission, again. Now thinking about what videos I need in a portfolio, how to get the attention of talent agencies rah rah rah. I spent about 20 minutes agonizing on these steps before I simply ran out of steam. Disappointingly what I produced was nothing more than a fleshed out version of the plan I made in 5 minutes. No “Eurkea” moments. No massive changes in strategy.

The Motivation

I have goals, like this video, that I have simply no idea how to accomplish. I’m also pessimist: as in I make predictions about things that concern me, and I consistently underpredict the outcomes. I don’t commit to ambitious goals because I am, likely, being too pessimistic when I evaluate them.

I also can’t make large projects with lots of people “happen”. Think about things like film productions. I blame this glibly on not being a “salesman”. I am not someone who can persuade people to dedicate time and energy to my goals (I am a good leader if there’s a common goal, I can’t sell people on a goal). I also am terrible at getting people to hand over money to be for any reason, so it’s not like I can get investment to simply pay people.

What did I expect?

I expected that agonizing over an impossible problem would make a “merely difficult” problem feel easy by comparison. Sort of like anchoring in negotiation – if you’re the first to say a price, that sets the reference point for the conversation. Brian Eno describes how when he was struggling with a creative impasse, a commission to create the Windows 95 greeting sound, which was only seconds long. It made him feel like he had “oceans of time” when he returned to songwriting thus “broke the logjam” of his own creativity.

I don’t pretend there is anything scientific about my approach. And drawing conclusions from one attempt may not be helpful or informative, either. I also don’t want to give the impression I’m now skeptical of “Challenging the Difficult”. The observations in that sequence aren’t necessarily reflected in my attempt.

Okay, why didn’t it work?

I can’t be sure why it didn’t work.

Perhaps I didn’t dedicate enough time? Perhaps struggling with a logistically difficult issue, that I knew nothing about, doesn’t activate the cognitive frameworks to solve real problems? Perhaps, there was too much difference between the problems? Maybe I didn’t “believe” enough (i.e. I didn’t exert the mental activity needed on the quantum satellite task to get the dividends on the video real goal)? Maybe cognitive priming and anchoring is bunk? Perhaps I should have used different modalities: planning on paper two tasks are too similar in method. i.e if one had of been a jigsaw puzzle or learning dance steps, I would have gotten more dividends?

Maybe it did, in fact, work. Except, I failed to notice the improvements in my planning upon returning the commission task?

So what should I do now or next? 

Probably become a “better salesman” and “build my portfolio”. How to do that, and what that entails, I don’t know.

However, it is disappointing that this leaves this exercise at a dead-end.

Are there cognitive strategies and “hacks” which can improve how we solve problems to plan projects better? Almost certainly: so much of the Eurkea moment, the flashbulb of insight, is the correct arrangement of thoughts or mental structures being activated and doesn’t require the acquisition of new information. However, that’s so vague as to be totally unhelpful right now. 

What do you think?

I’m eager to read reflections, corrections, or similar strategies from you all. Even if it causes me a forehead slapping moment of embarrassed insight, “oh of course, how could I be so stupid!”