

How Do You Think of Problems to Solve? - rockstar9

It seems like the best way to get an idea going to just to think of a problem. However, even this doesn't seem very easy. How do you do when you try to think of problems to solve? How do you poke your memory?
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neilc
One thing I've found helpful is to keep a notebook (either online or physical)
with every interesting idea, unsolved problem, or irritating deficiency that I
notice. Once you get into the habit of thinking "how could I improve this?" or
"why does this suck so much?", I've found that I've begun to notice an
abundance of potential problems to tackle. There's a big difference between
just thinking idly about something, and taking the steps to write it down.

~~~
dangoldin
I do the same thing. Make sure to ALWAYS write down anything you've thought of
- you may think that you'll remember it but you may find yourself trying to
think of that idea again.

Writing things down also causes some additional thinking to go on so that may
give you even more ideas.

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martythemaniak
By using the (according to Larry Wall) First Chief Virtue of a Great
Programmer: Laziness.

I'm pretty lazy and my mind has the tendency to space out into thought, so no
matter what I'm doing (programming, yard work etc) I always look for ways to
make it easier on me. A lot of times there isn't much to improve and you just
have to keep plodding along, but sometimes you get really neat insights and
ideas.

For example, some time back I was working as a web developer doing
applications for program managers at a large company. After a few months of
doing that, it turned out a LOT of the applications they needed were very
similar, so after I finished my intern work term and went back to school, I
made an application that writes other applications for my 4th year design
project.

The idea behind it is that non-programmers can use a GUI to generate a certain
class of applications automatically. Turns out that was a very good idea,
since while I was writing the prototype Coghead (www.coghead.com) came out
with their public beta and their software aimed to do the same thing I was
doing (albeit in a different way).

I could give more examples, but being lazy is generally a good source of
problems. :)

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DaniFong
You can try to solve your own problems, and see where they might be problems
for other people, too. If you've run out of problems, you can try to be either
more curious, or more discriminating.

You can hold a tool in the back of your head, and try applying it to
everything, to see if it might fit. This requires discipline. It is often much
better to hold a problem in your head, and see if new tools might apply,
Feynman used this technique to great effect.

Or you can try to solve other people problems. This requires insight, but it
also requires empathy. This is a hard thing to cultivate. It can't be turned
on like a switch, and it's difficult to empathize with those far from your
life experience. But there are many people who've lived lives similar to yours
-- if your friends don't have any problems in their lives, they are unusually
charmed.

~~~
donw
Many successful businesses are based on comments by people solving problems
for their friends and families; the man who came up with the Band-Aid did so
because his wife was unusually accident-prone. Listening to the problems of
the people around you, and helping them solve those problems, is not a bad way
to go about things.

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wheels
It's a mindset. Start thinking of everything as "something you can fix". Every
time something annoys you or you think of something you wish existed but
doesn't, or you think of a novel way of doing something, write it down. After
a couple weeks you'll realize that you have a lot more ideas than you thought
you did, but you were just (falsely) assuming that you couldn't do anything
about it.

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attack
When I solve my own problems, I end up creating the next "emacs" for the
problem area. It is _awesome_. But people on the web don't want emacs' they
want notepads.

So don't do that I guess.

~~~
capablanca
tell us more

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epi0Bauqu
Pretty much everything is suboptimal. Consequently, if you dig into anything
deep enough, you will begin to notice many of its problems. And depending on
how you "dig," people usually will just tell you the problems.

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cmm324
Well, you encounter problems on a daily basis. Next time you encounter
something that was poorly organized, poorly created or just down right poor,
then solve the problem that made it poor.

That is ultimately how I came to the vision of
<http://www.propertystampede.com> . Ultimately I saw a problem of lacking
innovation in the real estate rentals world. So I am solving it.

Chris

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mattmaroon
Just keep asking "why?" over and over like a 5 year old.

Combine that with a solid knowledge of history.

~~~
jkush
This is incredibly insightful advice. Almost accidentally, I've found that
recursively asking "why?" results in very unexpected answers. And by
unexpected I mean insightful.

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bdr
It doesn't work you like that: you can't just think of a problem out of
nowhere (nor a research project, nor an idea for a poem). It's a lot easier to
pay attention for a while and notice when _you_ have a problem.

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timcederman
Thinking of a problem to solve? What happened to ones that already exist?

