When trying to solve any problem of a certain magnitude, the biggest risk is jumping to solutions before framing the problem effectively. Most of the times a solution comes to mind it is too early to think on solutions. Instead stay focused on the problem, can you fully describe what is happening as observable facts?
My brain works best finding obvious solutions to evident problems very fast, and it keeps trying to execute this over and over again, as if to show off its best trick. I often feel compelled to ignore all non-evident problems and non-obvious solutions and find a quick match. What is even more concerning to me is that I often feel rewarded for doing so.
The behavior I see in many people seems to be consistent with my own. I don’t know what causes or motivates our thinking processes or how they work; besides I am not aiming at a general theory. I am just recording an observation: from my limited vantage point, many of us act often in a way that appears to favor reaching fast, simple and obvious solutions to not completely understood problems over hard, complex and conscientious problem solving. Maybe this is an economical behavior that evolution has favored, saving us from the lavish energetic expense of thinking hard.
To try and avoid this pitfall, when I feel I already comprehend a problem and I can describe the causes and effects at play, then I will look for things outside the system I am considering or parts of it which are not yet visible to me. I will ask myself what is their impact on the problem I am trying to solve and how they interact with what I have already considered. If I cannot see any new interactions I will keep watching, I have not learned to see yet.
I am only done when I can see plenty additional components and interactions but they do not change my understanding of the system and its behavior, adding only nuance and detail. Then I can rest for a second, congratulating myself on having tamed my inner impatient this time. Then I can get back to work because now it is time to start acting on the system: what can I do to see if my current understanding holds itself?
The Adaptive Executive 