Learning & thinking · a life skill
Deliberate Problem Restatement
five versions before you pick one
The first way you phrase a problem decides which answers you'll think of. Most of us stop at that first phrasing. This is a month of practice at not stopping: one stuck problem a week, five versions of it made with five different levers, a night before you choose, and a log of which lever gave you the one you tried.
- Moderate to start
- High impact
- Learn it in 2-4 weeks
- One problem a week, five ways
The first version blames the child. The other five each point at something you could try. By week four, two levers had never won, and those are the ones to reach for first in month two.
Two to four weeks
Try it now.
One real problem a week, the kind that's been sitting there. Twenty minutes on Monday, five on Tuesday, a line on Friday.
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Write it as it came
Monday, write the problem the way it sounds in your head, complaint and all. Don't tidy it up. The first phrasing is what you're practising your way out of.
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Pull five levers
Write one version per lever. Ask why it matters, to go wider. Go smaller, to the first step. Change who it's about. Move it in time or place. Drop a rule you assumed.
Start each version with "How might…" or "What if…". A version that's a solution in disguise ("buy a planner") gets rewritten as the problem it solves. -
Leave it open a night
Don't pick yet. Tuesday, read the five again and add one more if one comes. It's fine if none does; the habit is not closing the problem the moment you've phrased it.
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Pick one and say what solved looks like
Choose the version you can try this week. Write one line on what would count as it working, so Friday has an answer.
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Log the lever that won
Friday, note which lever gave you the version you tried and whether things moved. After four weeks, read the tally: the levers that never won are the ones you don't think to pull.
Not every problem needs five. A flat tyre is a flat tyre. Use this on the problems you've been stuck on for a while, where the first phrasing is likely the reason.
This week's fan
Write five versions, pick one, and keep a month's log.
Each lever comes with a starter. Fill in as many as you can, pick the one you'll try, then add it to the log. On Friday, mark whether it moved. After a few weeks the tally shows which levers you lean on.
Five levers
Your month's log
Which lever won
tried and it moved
Nothing you type is saved or sent anywhere, and the log is gone when you leave the page. Copy it each Friday and keep it with your notes.
Why keep the problem open
Art students who spent longer finding their problem made drawings that judges rated as more original.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and Jacob Getzels gave 31 art students the same task: a table of 27 objects, a second table to arrange some of them on, and paper to draw the arrangement. There was no time limit, and no one told them what to draw.
The researchers didn't only judge the drawings. They watched how each student got there. Before drawing: how many objects they handled, how unusual their choices were, how fully they explored them. While drawing: how long they kept the arrangement open, and whether they changed it, or changed what they were trying to do, as they went.
Artists and critics then rated the finished drawings. The students who had explored more and settled later, treating the problem as something to find rather than something given, made the drawings rated more original. In a later summary, Getzels reported that following the same 31 from art school into their working lives, skill at finding and formulating problems went with creative achievement.
The honest limits: 31 students at one art school, observed rather than assigned to a method. It shows that people who kept the problem open did better, not that being told to will make you better. And it was drawing, not homework fights. The practice above borrows the behaviour, not a proven result.
- Before drawing. How many objects they handled, how unusual the ones they chose were, and how fully they explored them.
- While drawing. How long they kept the arrangement open, and whether they changed it, or the problem, as they went.
The idea
Why it works.
Every phrasing of a problem carries a guess about its cause. "I can't get my son to do his homework" guesses that the trouble is getting him to do it. Each lever swaps in a different guess, and a different guess turns up answers the first one hid.
The log is what makes this practice rather than a one-off. Most people have one or two levers they reach for without noticing. Seeing a month of picks in a row shows you which ones you skip, and next month you pull those first.
When it goes wrong
Habits that help.
- Problems, not solutions. "Buy him a desk" is an answer. Ask what it answers ("How might he have somewhere quiet?") and write that instead.
- Five, even when two feel enough. The third to fifth versions are the ones you wouldn't have thought of. That's the point of asking for five.
- Pick what you can test this week. The widest version is often the most interesting and the hardest to try. Keep it in the log, and pick something you'll know about by Friday.
- Mark Friday honestly. A version that didn't move anything still tells you something. If the same lever keeps winning and never moves, try a different one first next week.
Go deeper
Keep going.
- Simple Problem Restatement
- Deliberate Problem Restatement
- Advanced Problem Restatement
Books
Keep this going in the app.
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