Two modes of thinking: Focused and Diffused

I was speaking to my mum this morning (Hi Ma! 👋🏻) to catch up and she told me to rest. She said I looked tired. I then told her that I had a lot on my mind regarding the things I was working on and not been sleeping so well too. She then told me, “Go and have a nap. It would be good for you.”

My brain sparked.

Hearing that, I was reminded of what I had read many years ago in the book by James Webb Young called A Technique for Producing Ideas. The book is a simple and quick read which I would recommend. Essentially, Mr Young had proposed five steps that anyone should keep in mind if they want to produce meaningful ideas:

1. Gather information. Read, observe, speak to others, watch videos etc.
2. Digest the information. Put some thought on what information you have absorbed. Ask questions like, “does it make sense to me? How is this related to my life? or to the life of people around me?”
3. Do NOT think about it. Put your thoughts about that information aside. Go do something else like playing games, sleep, eating etc. Simply do not think about it.
4. Wait for a Eureka moment. During the period of not thinking about the information, there may be a moment when your brain will spark with an idea! The various information you had previously gathered and thought about will connect to one another will form a coherent connected idea.
5. Crystallise idea. With this ‘Eureka!’ idea in your mind, you now want to give it some colour. Brainstorm the details around those ideas and write them out to crystallise the idea.

Do NOT think about your idea.

Counter intuitive isn’t it? That for you to think of ideas, you should not think about them.

The first time I read this, my first reaction to it was, “Bollocks! This is nonsense.” But personal experience and wisdom from others have thought me that Mr Young is up to something here.

There are many stories of people that come up with great problem-solving ideas due to serendipity. Famous one are the likes of Newton thinking of gravity from seeing the apple fall, or Archimedes figured the equation for volume and density from taking a bath.

But really, why do these happen?

Modes of thinking: Focused mode and Diffuse mode

I took a course on Learning how to learn from Coursera which introduced to me the concept of the two modes of thinking. When we are learning and thinking, can be in one two different modes, (1) Focused mode or (2) Diffused mode.

Look at the diagram above and imagine the brain to be a pinball machine. Your thought is the pinball, and the ideas in your brain are formed from the pinball bouncing from one point to another.

When our brain is in ‘focused mode’, our brain is connecting knowledge points which are closely related to each other. This mode of thinking is advantageous when we are trying to work on tasks that require a high level of detailing. This could be tasks like solving doing accounting or math questions, writing software code, cooking a meal etc. When a task requires concentration, your thinking is usually in focused mode.

‘Diffused mode’ is when your brain starts to connect knowledge points which may not be closely related to each other. In contrary to ‘focused mode’ where your knowledge points are closely packed to one another; in ‘diffused mode’ the knowledge points are loosely arranged. In this sense, ‘diffused mode’ thinking is a more creative mode as you are connecting knowledge from one area to another that is not closely related.

This unconventional connection that happens in diffuse mode thinking, may just be what is required to problem-solve difficult questions. When you are in diffused mode, your brain could connect a far-away knowledge point that may be required to solve the task at hand. This is how thinking out-of-the-box happens. This is how you get that “Eureka!” moment.

For you to get into this ‘diffuse mode’ of thinking, you need to not be focusing on the problem or idea. You need to allow your brain to move away from “focused mode” thinking and slowly slip into a diffuse mode of thinking. This can be done by sleeping, running or simply doing something else that is not concentrating on the problem or idea.

So, the next time you are trying really hard to think of an idea and cannot seem to connect the dots, perhaps you can take my mum’s advice;

“Go and have a nap. It would be good for you.”

My Mama ❤️

Thank you and love you Ma,
Ruiz

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PS: I highly recommend the Coursera course I took on Learning How to Learn. Dr. Oakley and Dr. Sejnowski did a tremendous job for the course!