ack,
Thank for your response. I too use it for actual issues and not just academic problems. It might not be obvious, but I don't think this is a strategy that should be applied frivolously to real world problems. This is why I stressed that this was the real game to me. Conventional wisdom should only be set aside when it makes sense. It became "conventional" and "wisdom" for a reason. I guess what I am trying to say here is that every problem shouldn't be attacked from all angles for the sake of doing it when the obvious straight forward approach works. I do advocate practicing the technique on your own liberally - even as just a thought experiment, because it is a skill that is improved with practice and becomes invaluable when needed for actual problems.

For me, the hardest thing to do...and to get others to do...is to not "tune out" other people's approaches. I have found that the vast majority of "leaps" into new solutions for me have come from ideas (sometimes just small, seemingly insignificant, comments) that came from someone with an entirely different perspective on the problem.

I find that a far easier task than not tuning out someone who is describing an approach I have already considered and dismissed. I have to force myself to keep listening to make sure they do not bring new information to the idea that I hadn't considered before dismissing it. Otherwise, I find myself abruptly cutting them off and explaining why it won't work. In comparison, it is relatively easy for me to listen to a completely new or different idea. I agree though that even that is a struggle when I believe I have already thought of the best solution.

Cheers - L~R

In reply to Re^2: Turning A Problem Upside Down by Limbic~Region
in thread Turning A Problem Upside Down by Limbic~Region

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.