How to Think Better: A Shallow Dive into a Deep Topic

The ability to critically think through problems is invaluable yet challenging to master. Effective thinking saves time, reduces mistakes, and fosters innovation, but it's not a fixed skill. It requires deliberative practice and effort. To improve, allocate dedicated time for deep thinking, limit multitasking, engage in activities that require sustained attention, practice patience, write regularly, and read widely and critically. These habits lead to better decision-making, creativity, personal growth, and the development of ideas which are valuable and original.

Edward O. Thorp — renowned mathematician and blackjack researcher — once pondered: "Where do the ideas come from? Mine come from sitting and thinking." While seemingly self-evident, it conveys a fundamental truth — that deep thinking is the wellspring of original ideas.

Yet there is an unspoken truth at the heart of the self-evident one. If we stop thinking as soon as we grasp the gist of something, or use technology to generate our ideas, at best we scratch the surface and at worst don't even engage in thinking at all. True understanding and innovation requires us to go beyond the obvious, to not only sit with a problem but with the inevitable ambiguity it brings, and to explore our thinking from multiple perspectives.

This makes critical thinking something that is valuable and rare. Valuable, because effectively thinking through an issue can save time by reducing mistakes and lead to more innovative and effective solutions. Rare, because far fewer people actually think, than think they think.

The Myth of Multitasking

One significant obstacle to deep thinking is the pervasive myth of multitasking. Clifford Nass, along with his colleagues Eyal Ophir and Anthony Wagner, conducted a study in which their findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealed that heavy media multitaskers are easily distracted and perform more poorly on cognitive tasks. Contrary to the assumption that multitaskers have superb control over their attention and thoughts, the study found that they were more susceptible to irrelevant stimuli and had disorganised minds.

In their experiments, the researchers divided participants into high and low multitaskers. In one test, participants had to focus on red rectangles and ignore surrounding blue rectangles. Low multitaskers managed this easily, while high multitaskers were frequently distracted by the blue rectangles, leading to poor performance. Further tests revealed that high multitaskers had worse memories and struggled to organise information, debunking the idea that they might excel in these areas to compensate for their distractibility.

Concentration, Patience, and the Role of Writing

In the same year as the study on the perils of multitasking appeared, William Deresiewicz, author of Excellent Sheep, gave a speech at USMA titled Solitude and Leadership, in which he emphasised the need for concentration and patience in thinking. True thinking, he argued, involves developing ideas, not merely absorbing and regurgitating other peoples' thinking. It is a process that requires sustained focus, and the space to allow us to make connections and associations that surface original insights.

Deresiewicz points out that initial thoughts are often conventional and unoriginal. It is only by persevering, by letting the mind wander and explore, that we arrive at truly novel ideas. This patience is crucial for deep thinking, as it allows us to refine our thoughts, recognise mistakes, and make necessary corrections.

I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else's; it's always what I've already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It's only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise. And often even that idea doesn't turn out to be very good. I need time to think about it, too, to make mistakes and recognize them, to make false starts and correct them, to outlast my impulses, to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on to the next thing.

— William Deresiewicz

Writing plays a critical and central role in this process because it enables us to iterate our thinking through multiple drafts. This concept was succinctly put by Leslie Lamport , winner of the 2013 Turing Award and initial developer of the LaTeX publishing system favoured by scientists and academics. He famously said: 'If you're thinking without writing, you only think you're thinking.' Writing forces us to articulate our thoughts clearly and logically, which helps in refining and testing our ideas.

When we write, we slow down and focus on one idea at a time. This deliberative approach enhances our ability to reason and develop deeper understanding of subject. Poor writing often reflects muddled thinking, while good writing requires clarity and precision — which in turn demands clear and precise thinking.

I find this invaluable as seldom will I simply write out an article in one go. I need to sit with the problem for a while, take it out for a walk, and think about it from different angles. Only through this process does the first thought mature into something worth publishing.

Practical Steps to Improve Thinking

Allocate Time for Thinking: set aside dedicated time for thinking each day. This could be in the form of writing down your thoughts or simply sitting quietly without distractions and thinking about an issue.
Limit Multitasking: focus on one task at a time to improve concentration and cognitive performance. Avoid constant interruptions from social media, emails, or other distractions.
Engage in Deep Work: being able to immerse yourself fully in tasks that require sustained attention is essential as this can lead to greater insights and more creative solutions. It is also the only way to break through the initial inertia of life which keeps trying to distract us from the thinking at hand.
Practice Patience: be kind to yourself and allow the time to explore ideas fully. Resist the urge to settle for the first solution that comes to mind and never be afraid to let your thoughts evolve and mature — even if their direction may initially seem unrelated to your initial line of enquiry.
Write Regularly: use writing as a tool to clarify and test your thinking. By regularly writing out your thinking in long form, not just bullet points, you strength your ability to articulate your thoughts clearly and logically.
Read Widely and Critically: expose yourself to diverse perspectives and ideas. This requires considerable courage as we too often only delve into that which buttresses our preexisting thinking. Not something that is conducive to thinking critically or originally. The act of reading widely also requires you critically evaluate what you read. In short, do not believe everything, particularly in this 'post-truth' world.

The Benefits of Better Thinking

In a world where 'quick wins' abound and AI is built into almost every application to 'save you time', surface-level understanding is too often rewarded. Developing the ability to think deeply and critically is a valuable and rare skill, and unfortunately does not get the credit it deserves in many circles. Therefore, be patient, realise your initial efforts are unlikely to be rewarded. But, if you persist by limiting multitasking, dedicating time for deep thinking, and use writing as a tool to clarify and test our ideas, you can enhance your cognitive abilities and arrive at more original and effective solutions.

In time, this will set you apart from your peers as you will be better able to position for future challenges in a way that will seem prescient. It will mark you out as an individual of enhanced creativity who can connect disparate ideas in novel ways. It also leads to personal growth, as you will develop a deeper understanding of yourself and the world around you.

Good thinking, like asking good questions, is expensive, but bad thinking costs even more. Investing in your ability to think better will benefit all areas of your life. Take the time to think deeply, and you will find that your ideas are not only more original but also more valuable.

Good night, and good luck.