Problem Solving is everywhere

In my last blog I touched on how when I wake up, I am faced with a problem. That problem, is being over tired and groggy. This can be a very bad start of the day. So I have to take action to solve this problem. I usually solve this problem by drinking a cup of coffee, this allows me to get that caffeine rush I desperately need. This is a very trivial example of problem solving, but it still is an example of problem solving. This just goes to show that even the little things in life that you have become used to started with you having to decide what is the best way to solve this problem. For me it is almost instinct to grab a cup of coffee before or while on my way to work or school. It did not start like this, I had to learn through experience to find out that this is the most effective way to solve my problem.

It did not start like this, I had to do a lot of trial and error to get to this answer. Going through this period of trial and error allowed me to learn that there is only really one clear answer in this situation to solve my problem. With technology, many people have become better with problem solving. Not in the sense of using social media because that is actually very distracting and counterproductive. I am talking that the whole world is at your fingertips. You can look up anything and study anything. Working in a hardware store I come across many suburban people who watch HGTV that want to fix up there house without hiring someone. They all come in telling my how they watched a youtube video that walked them through their problem. This is a good stepping stone to learn how to do things. Researching a watching how to do things gives you an advantage instead of just going in blind. Unfortunately, you can watch video after video, but until you get down and dirty you will never truly learn. As Mohammed Ali Vakil said in his blog, A Mental Model to Leverage Information Overload as Creative Fuel for Problem Solving, “Learning is not memorizing information. Real learning happens when you take action. Taking action gives you feedback from real life experience, which gives you new data to reflect on that feeds onto your work”(Vakil 2017). This quote means that until you get down and dirty and use what you have learned, you are robbing yourself of knowledge. You need to be able to give it a try, you need to be able to see the final result to get feedback and to analyze the results.

Just as a medical student studies day and night how to save people, they still have to go through residency. They know how to do everything on paper, but there are so many different variables at play in real life situations. That is why residency is so important and they have to do it for many years. All of that knowledge is useless unless you an apply it when it matters. That is why learning through real life situations is so important in the process of building on your problem solving skills. Without being able to implement this knowledge in real life situations, this knowledge you have could be going to waste.

You need to expand your horizons. There is so much information in the world. This is a good thing, you need to search out new information. Do not limit yourself, seek diverse sources of information. There are things out there in the world that you do not know that you do not know (Vakil 2017). This is true for everyone, there are even things that I don’t know that I don’t know. Until you cast a large net and seek out different forms of research, you will not be able to grow as a problem solver.

Mohammed Ali Vakil explain in his article that problem solving is something important. He explains the general steps of how to problem solve. My take on his writing piece is that being able to properly learn and to be able to filter important information, are the most important aspects of problem solving. He encourages the reader to use their knowledge to complete small and easy tasks to get the hang of problem solving (Vakil 2017).

Citation:

Vakil, M. A., 2017, A mental model to leverage information overload as creative fuel for problem solving, [Blog Post], retrieved from URL https://medium.com/swlh/a-mental-model-to-leverage-information-overload-as-creative-fuel-for-problem-solving-584647c9b633