How Do You Learn To Think

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HOW DO YOU LEARN TO THINK.

If you asked people to write out what they were thinking, most would have nothing to write. Thinking is not repeating what you saw on the TV or what somebody told you at the pub. That’s memory. Thinking is original thought.

How do you learn to think? Multitaskers aren’t good. Research indicates they are poor at distinguishing between relevant and irrelevant information, ignoring the latter. They are distractible. They were worse at what you might call mental filing information in the right conceptual boxes and not being able to retrieve it quickly. Their minds were disorganized and even worse, switching between tasks.

WHAT IS THINKING

Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. It is not learning other people's ideas or memorizing a body of information. However, those may sometimes be useful for developing your own ideas. Short thinking in bursts of 20 seconds at a time, constantly interrupted by Facebook messages or Twitter tweets, or fiddling with your iPad or watching something on YouTube does not work as thinking.

My first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else's. It is normally what I've already heard about the subject which is usually only conventional wisdom. Then all the parts of my mind come into play so that I can arrive at an original idea. I need time to think about it, to make mistakes and recognize them, to make false starts and correct them. I need to outlast my impulses to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on to the next thing.

The great German novelist Thomas Mann said that a writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. The best writers write much more slowly than everyone else. The better they are, the slower they write. So it is with any form of thought. Research again indicates you do your best thinking by slowing down and concentrating.

IMPROVE YOUR THINKING

To improve your ability to think is to spend time thinking. It's only by concentrating and sticking to the question. Being patient. If all the parts of your mind come into play you arrive at an original idea giving your brain a chance to make associations or connections and take you by surprise.

Our thinking is more easily described as deliberately and systematically processing information so that you can make better decisions and generally understand things better. Most of our everyday thinking is uncritical. If we had to think deliberately about every single action we wouldn't have any energy left for the important stuff. It's good that much of our thinking is automatic. However, we can run into problems when we let our automatic mental processes govern important decisions. It is easy to get caught in pointless arguments or say stupid things just because you fail to stop and think deliberately.

How do we get better at thinking? Ask basic questions. Question basic assumptions. Human thought is amazing, but the speed and automation with which it happens, can be a disadvantage when we try to think. Our brains naturally use mental shortcuts to explain what's happening around us. Don't get so bogged down in research and reading that you forget to think for yourself.

How is it that some people seem to come up with all kinds of interesting original work? The others of us trudge along our daily routines whilst creative thinkers are different. They build on what others have already done. They question everything that we observe with all of our senses. They let ideas incubate. They defer judgment. They are curious and look for what is not easily seen. They overlook the rules.

Successful thinking takes practice, the more time you spend thinking, the more ideas you come up with. More than likely some of them will be good ones. If they are rubbish, try not to dwell on it. Your thinking will never improve if it consists entirely of thinking how much of a failure you are.

If you're having trouble thinking it may be because you lack another skill that would make it easier. Such as you don't actually know anything about the subject. You don't have a wide enough vocab to put your thoughts into words. Perhaps the time management skills are so bad that you've only left 10 minutes to tackle the universe question. You may also be in the wrong environment to protect productive thought. Explore stimulating new locations. Thinking is not always something that needs to be done alone.

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Recent Comments

23

Intriguing! While i definitely gave up multitasking a long time ago - as it clearly hinders my concentration - you make some excellent points about slowing down, taking our time and concentrating.

I've found that the best ideas have always come to me when I am the most focused and intentional with my thinking. And I always keep that handy pen and legal pad beside me too.

Thanks for the post, Stephen
Isaiah 😊

Isaiah, thanks heaps for your comments.
have a great day.
Stephen.

A fascinating post Stephen. I am sure that there are many who go through life without ever having an original thought.
Finding you own best environment to be able to think, is key. Today's world runs at 100mph and distractions are on hand 24/7, so being able to remove yourself from that, is important if we are to give ourselves the opportunity to have those moments of original thinking.

It just allows us to grow more effectively. Real thinking helps us achieve that. i appreciate your thoughts. It is critical that we keep studying.
Thanks for your interest.
Have a great day.
Stephen

You're very welcome, you too.

Another good post on a question we always seem to overlook. "Original Thinking".
I like the idea of slowing down and letting your thoughts incubate, too often I think I am on the right track and run with it only to find that I haven't thought it through properly.

Love the posts.
Regards

Gaz

Thanks Gaz.
Have a great day
Stephen.

Thought-provoking perspective. We all have our own way of how we think. Some are super effective and some are super-efficient. We all end up with what we believe is the end product of our thoughts. Some have nothing to arrive at. But they keep on thinking and get mentally exhausted or become a mental case. Relax and enjoy. Thanks, great post.

Thanks Florentino. Appreciate your thoughts and interest. We all come from different levels/standards. and have different requirements.
Have a great day.
Stephen.

Great post

Thanks heaps.
Stephen

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