One thing to note—Brainstorming itself is a meta-strategy that may or may not be the best approach at certain points in the problem, to generate meta-strategic approaches.
Brainstorming for me has a particular flavor—it’s helpful when I have a lot of ideas but don’t know where to start, or when it feels like my mind just needs the starter cord pulled a few times.
Other times, I get a lot more out of a taking a walk and let my mind wander around the problem, not specifically listing out lanes of attack, but sort of holding the intention that one may show up as I think in a free associative way and walk.
Other times it’s helpful for me to have a conversation with a friend, especially one who I can see has the right mind-shape to frame this sort of problem.
Other times it’s helpful to specifically look through the list of meta-strategies I have, wandering around my Roam and seeing how different mental models and frameworks can frame the problem.
I guess what I’m saying is, it’s helpful to separate the move of “oh, it’s time to figure out what meta-strategy I can use” from “oh, it’s time to brainstorm”
I just realized that this then brings the problem of “oh, but what’s the meta-meta strategy i use), but I think there’s just an element of taste to this.
Oh yeah. I may try to update the post to caveat this.
Relatedly: some people give me feedback that the process (or, the way I explain/demonstrate it) feels like some particular flavor of rigid/orderly in a way that doesn’t work for everyone.
(I think that some of the people-for-whom-it-doesn’t-work would benefit gaining some skills that would allow it to work. If you can’t write stuff up your thought-process is doc, you’re missing out on a lot of working-memory-extension options that will be limiting for you. But, writing stuff up in a doc, or doing so in a “brainstormy” way, is not always the right move, regardless.)
One thing to note—Brainstorming itself is a meta-strategy that may or may not be the best approach at certain points in the problem, to generate meta-strategic approaches.
Brainstorming for me has a particular flavor—it’s helpful when I have a lot of ideas but don’t know where to start, or when it feels like my mind just needs the starter cord pulled a few times.
Other times, I get a lot more out of a taking a walk and let my mind wander around the problem, not specifically listing out lanes of attack, but sort of holding the intention that one may show up as I think in a free associative way and walk.
Other times it’s helpful for me to have a conversation with a friend, especially one who I can see has the right mind-shape to frame this sort of problem.
Other times it’s helpful to specifically look through the list of meta-strategies I have, wandering around my Roam and seeing how different mental models and frameworks can frame the problem.
I guess what I’m saying is, it’s helpful to separate the move of “oh, it’s time to figure out what meta-strategy I can use” from “oh, it’s time to brainstorm”
I just realized that this then brings the problem of “oh, but what’s the meta-meta strategy i use), but I think there’s just an element of taste to this.
Oh yeah. I may try to update the post to caveat this.
Relatedly: some people give me feedback that the process (or, the way I explain/demonstrate it) feels like some particular flavor of rigid/orderly in a way that doesn’t work for everyone.
(I think that some of the people-for-whom-it-doesn’t-work would benefit gaining some skills that would allow it to work. If you can’t write stuff up your thought-process is doc, you’re missing out on a lot of working-memory-extension options that will be limiting for you. But, writing stuff up in a doc, or doing so in a “brainstormy” way, is not always the right move, regardless.)