This has happened to me a lot. I think, subconsciously, I’ve even begun my e-mail plea thinking that it might help me work out my problem, although I don’t know if I’ve approached it quite as proactively as you are.

It’s a great tool, and generally the joy of finding the solution outweighs the embarrassment that you had the answer all along and only “got” it when you were seeking help.

This is brilliant. Especially for folks who are better at expressing themselves in writing, as I think a lot of bloggers/journalers are.

It gives you a structured way also to let the thing brew - write it down and mull it over - you have it captured to come back to.

By the way, I like that most of your posts are pep talks/suggestions for yourself. It just works - b/c we all struggle with so many of the same things.

Would your approach be the same as a plea for assistance from your “subconscious”(to google, or not to google)? My counselor tells me that if we (I) can get in touch with this vast reservoir of information, that it will provide answers for most of our questions. What thinkest thou ?

Reminds me of what the Pragmatic Programmers call “Rubber Ducking” (http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?RubberDucking) — by simply verbalizing your problem, even to an inanimate object, the solution becomes clear.

A quote from this page

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/classes/AY2000/cs1311x/lectureSpring2001/test-strat2.html

describes the same sort of strategy:

“There was a lab at MIT that used to (or might still, I forget) have a teddy bear that you could go explain your problem to and ask it questions. You often would be able to solve your own problem rather easily, before you had to ask another.”

I’ve read about the teddy bear elsewhere (the page above was the first Google hit), but I don’t know if the story is true. It sounds right, though.

This is a very useful tip— I learned it early on in my experience doing IT troubleshooting. Simply thinking through your problem as though you were going to ask one of your co-workers what they thought the problem could be is often enough to hit on the solution without actually interrupting anyone. Whether you’re just thinking it out or writing it down, you’re forcing yourself to look at the situation from someone else’s perspective, and you’re dotting your i’s and crossing your t’s. If you’re writing it down, you now have a work log of what you have tried (and possibly in what order). All of this makes for a good CYA even if you still need to go ask someone with more experience for ideas.

Yes and yes! I’ve seen Agile developers talk about “cardboard cutouts” and I think it’s roughly the same idea here.

I do like the idea of being mindful that you can’t just blather on though — to me it works because you force yourself to think as critically as you are able.

That’s why I make sure my particular cardboard cutout/teddy bear/duck is really smart and really really busy. :)

How uncnny.

Last Fall I began writing a journal, using entries to describe some of my programming challenges. I’d write it like a narrative, explaining the problem in plain english. More often than not, simply going thru this exercise helped me resolve the challenges. I have been using Journler (http://journler.phildow.net/).

I’ve used a related tchnique to get unstuck when thinking through a problem: I wrote a “play” about the problem, which was a dialogue between me and an expert like the busy guy you describe. Just in the form of a script: Me: I’m really stuck here. Expert: What’s the problem? Me: Well, … An imagined face-to-face dialogue might get to the solution even faster than waiting for the imagined expert to reply only after you’ve composed a long email.

One of my environment books is Thinking on Paper. The purpose of this book is to free writing from communication. Before you can communicate you must first fully shape your ideas so that you understand. Once you have a full understanding then you can communicate. So free yourself from writing to commutate and just write to understand.

“Has anyone ever figured out that 90% of the posts on this site are actually (notes|pep talks|reminders) to myself?”

I don’t think 43 Folders would be as fun and useful as it is if your audience was unable to identify with the issues you face in your life. Merlin, you’re one of us. :)

I usually get this result from talking at my wife about whatever the issue is. But I like this idea better, because it cuts right to the chase.

With her, I end up looping back n times to explain why this or that wouldn’t work. Emailing myself, I can get right to the point, slicing through all the excess.

And I’m pretty much available all the time! Bonus!

great thought Merlin.

I have pretty much done this for ages at work however, I just blunder over the subject heading!

A worthy read this and I’m going to improve the way I store information.

Keep up the good work on this site. Always refreshing to read.

I’ve had similar experiences five or six times calling tech support (for consumer products and at work). After getting no real solution, I hang up, and shortly thereafter, a solution suggests itself to me. I just used this strategy (?!) to solve a problem with an uncooperative usb wireless gadget.

For years, I’ve worked through technical difficulties by — go ahead and laugh; it’s okay — explaining them in my head to Ben Franklin. If I can work out the steps in such a way that a very smart guy with a minimal knowledge of modern toys could understand what’s going on, then I know I’m not overlooking something obvious.

I’ve had this experience with plotting problems for novels and screenplays. With me, it’s usually a verbal process where I call a friend to ask for help with a story and end up solving it myself in the process of explaining. It also works with email, when I can’t get somebody on the phone and resort to (gasp) the written word!

For that reason, I blogged about it today and have linked to this entry. Thanks for the reminder!

i think that somehow the reality of the other person actually being there is a necessary key. Sometimes I get CAD problems I can’t quite figure out, even though I know what I want, and I get a colleague to sit at my desk and push the mouse around, clicky-this, clicky-that… I find it easier to suggest solutions over their shoulder and I’m often embarassed that I’ve wasted their time calling them over…

but you know what? Hile I find that it’s the ‘obvious’ solution that I catch in 5 minutes… it takes me 2 hours to not find the solution all by myself. It’s not always enough to just pretend to have someone else look at your work.

Just a cosmetic comment : I love what you did with your acronym tag. English is not my mother tong, so coming across a RTFM got me confused. The sequence of the question sign appearing while mousing over, the alt content floating on the side a second later… It was a animated illustration of what I was thinking of : got a question here, need an answer, got the answer. 1,2,3, done, smart, ocurrence of evidence. Such a nice moment that I won’t forget the meaning of RTFM anytime soon. Chapeau bas, Monsieur.

I do this all the time. There is a group of online friends who feed each other questions and answers all day, and often, in the course of writing the e-mail I intend to send to them, to ask the question that’s been plaguing me, I sometimes figure out what I need to do. In an effort to not being like the handful of annoying people who dump questions without giving all the background, I research the background just a bit, and find myself answering my own question. I never thought about doing this consciously before, but now I might give it a try. P. S. love the blog. thanks.

Dear Self,

I am looking for a way to become financially independent. What every system I use should not require any work or effort on my part.

What would you suggest.

Sincerly,

Self

Hm. I guess it doesn’t work for me.

My lord, how right you are! Many a time I haved either asked someone for help and in the process of doing so, I solved hte problem myself, often leaving the questionee confused. However, this email thing is a bit different for me. After writing a “help me!” email, I simply hit send so fast that a while later, either when I reread my sent message or when I receive a reply, I figure it out myself.

I have used this process for some time. Unfortunately for me it involves actually sending the mail to either a colleague or public mailing list before the revelation hits. At that point I smack my forehead, say “d’oh!” and move on.

Wow, everyone is right on! Some thoughts as I read through everyone comments. 1) Yes I have had the experience of in the process of writing or explaining the problem seeing a solution. 2) Sometimes I will send the email to myself and just put it in the hold folder. Somehow seems to let my subconscious work. 3) I do think posts in group forums also do that and writing it out does help. I would encourage lurkers to contribute one something strikes them as interesting.:) 4) For big life decisions, I imagine me talking to myself at about 93 years old. I close my eyes and visualize myself in a rocking chair looking at the beautiful blue ridge mountains. She gives me the best advice. Most of the time she will just scoff and cackle and say that it really doesn’t matter. But on some issues she can be very opinionated.:) 5) At work I much prefer to receive and send email and voice-mail because it allows me to iterate on the problem and clarify it for myself. 6) I have used mentoring friendships to talk things through. 7) Mindmapping is a very powerful way to work through problems with yourself. 8) Has anyone ever had the experience where they feel very opinionated about something and they sound very clever in the own mind…. but then when ask to explain themselves and hear what they are thinking spoken aloud think how weak and trifling. :) Yeah it as happen a lot to me.

[…] So y’all already know how cool Merlin at 43 Folders is with all his way cool posts on how to hack life and GTD. Well, check out his latest post: Solve problems by writing a note to yourself. Go on. Do it now. […]

For this exact same purpose, a colleague of mine once suggested we buy an inflatable coworker. Just to explain things to him instead of each other, saving everybody’s time.

Merlin

this is very funny, & useful too.

now I see why my boss used to admonish how we should clearly write down the problem, so we can see the solution. I believe it’s same as “the answer will present itself, once you ask the right question”. But it’s so damn hard to find the right question. Putting the problem down on paper certain helps.

many thanks for sharing

best regards whleung

There’s something very similar in software development called ‘debugging by confession’. The idea is that if you get stuck in your programming, you explain the problem to a colleague and 9 times out of 10, you can solve it without your colleague uttering a single word.

Talking to yourself works fine too :)

[…] var comment=null; var prevForm = null; var formArray = null; function init() { if(comment == null) comment = “”; if(prevForm == null) { prevForm = “xprssAddComment”; document.getElementById(prevForm).commentText.value = “”; } if(formArray == null) formArray = [“xprssAddComment”, “othersCommentForm”, “anonAddComment”]; } function showForm(activeForm, isLoggedIn) { init(); if((Util.trim(document.getElementById(prevForm).commentText.value)) != null) { if(document.getElementById(prevForm).commentText.value) comment = document.getElementById(prevForm).commentText.value; } for(var i=0; i Fri, Feb 03, 2006 This article says that it is easy to solve problems by writing about them. When you starting making a note of the problem you will understand it better and sometimes even spot the mistake you made. This has happened to me several times. Whenever I learn about some complicated working, I try to make notes and in the process of doing so, discover more. Solve problems by writing a note to yourself Tags:  programming Comments to this post Add a comment […]

I come from a XP programming shop where pariing is a way of life. It’s great to be able to explain a problem to someone else long before I’ve been hitting my head against the wall for hours. Almost every time I start explaining with “It seems like i’m missing something stupid …” I am. Never fails that i stumble on the solution half way through explaining.