One common way I “invoke the inner simulator” is by thinking “what would someone tell me I should have tried if I’m going to report to them something failed (and possibly ask for their help)?”. This works surprisingly well, and ends up being similar to rubber ducking in some ways just without actually needing another person.
I honed this skill on StackOverflow, often answering my own questions in the process of writing them up to ask them, but find it useful in lots of situations.
Nice, I really like the approach of ‘write up a concrete question → assume I received a helpful answer → let my inner sim fill in the blanks about what it says’
One common way I “invoke the inner simulator” is by thinking “what would someone tell me I should have tried if I’m going to report to them something failed (and possibly ask for their help)?”. This works surprisingly well, and ends up being similar to rubber ducking in some ways just without actually needing another person.
I honed this skill on StackOverflow, often answering my own questions in the process of writing them up to ask them, but find it useful in lots of situations.
Nice, I really like the approach of ‘write up a concrete question → assume I received a helpful answer → let my inner sim fill in the blanks about what it says’