Why Having 40 Winks May Be The Answer to Your Problem(s)

Has anyone ever said to you while you battle with a problem, ‘just sleep on it’, followed by ‘it’ll look clearer in the morning?’

Have you consciously chosen to put something on the back burner or deliberately incubated a problem for a period of time?

Some research states you shouldn’t sleep on it others swear that getting some shut eye down for a few hours is an excellent idea.

I’m in agreement with the sleep on it people, works for me, but what about you, do you nap out your problems?

Can our problems be solved unconsciously?

I believe we learn best when the learning is unconscious, when we’re engaged in the learning as a complete system.

In learning, have you ever said, ‘where did the time go?’: you were in the flow, unthreatened, no frustration, curious and willing. Where the learning was challenging enough, but not overwhelming. You felt as if you were all there, the time flew by and at the end you just knew you were a lot smarter than when you began?

However with a problem however, have you struggled for days, felt extremely frustrated, ready to throw in the towel?

Did you feel anxious and desperate that you were never going to reach a solution, bored by it, angry even?

Lessons from Children

Have you ever watched a young child solve a toy puzzle?

These youngsters don’t have the linguistics yet to say, ‘oh geez, I’m so darned frustrated, my what a problem!‘, and they never in a teletubby minute give up too soon.

They just focus on the task, totally immersed, curious and stay that way until they solve the problem in front of them, or until they squeal with glee at the end result they have achieved, regardless if it matches the instructions on the box.

That was us once, wearing nappies, covered in droll and excellent problem solvers.

Perfect little sleuths we were: alert, observant and noticing everything around us. Collating all the clues we connected dots and came up with the best solution to the problems we faced.

We knew that in the problem was the solution.

Fecking geniuses all of us, at minus 700 days old!

What happened?

‘Our problems are more serious now!’ cry the grownups.

Yeah, whatever, still doesn’t excuse the fact you used to be remarkable at solving whatever was in your path. We didn’t even need training and management courses to show us how to be creative problem solvers, we knew no methods such as:

• Brainstorming: coming up with lots of possible solutions and ideas, then finding the most desirable solution.
• Divide and Conquer: breaking up a problem into lots of little problems that can be solved.
• Research: finding out information and identifying who had the same problem and applying it to your problem.
• Root Cause: identifying and taking away what caused the problem.
• Trial and Error: test, test, test, test until you find the solution eventually.
• Proof: proving it can’t be solved.

And other common methods such as:

• Tossing a coin: heads I’ll do this, tails I’ll do that.
• Denial: do nothing, refuse to admit there is a problem.
• Opinions: as someone else what they would do and do the opposite!

Incubating and Napping Out Problems

The Latin for incubate is incubare which means lie down on, it’s not denial or ignorance.

Want to give it a go?

In order for incubation to work, you need (according to the big research people) to have completed a few steps first.

Step 1

• Identify the desired outcome and understand the problem.
• Decide specifically what you want to happen.
• Knowing ‘how’ is not your concern, what would the problem look like fixed?
• What needs changed?
• What are you ultimately trying to achieve?
• What you ‘end-result’ thoughts?
• What is happening at present?
• Pinpoint when the current ‘problem’ became a problem: what happened, why did it breakdown?

Step 2

• What do you want to feel when the problem is completely resolved?
• What will you hear?
• What will you see?
• What will you know that you don’t know now (odd question to ask, trust me, you’ll know!)

Step 3

Be a sleuth. Choose your preferred method for information gathering. Gather as much as you can, brainstorm, divide and conquer, pros and cons lists as possible solutions and ideas.

• Are there better solutions to your problem?
• What research takes you out your comfort zones?

Step 4

Have a go at solving it. You aren’t looking for the solution, you are merely having a go. Work hard on it, use the skills you have and apply the new skills and learning you gathered at step 3.

Step 5

Let it go, leave it, sleep on it, incubate it.

Observe the solution when it appears. Huh? Be alert to the solutions.

Further Info:

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi is known for studying happiness and creativity, he’s best known for his work on the notion of ‘Flow’. Here’s his TedTalks video which explains the theory, if you don’t have time watch from 14.00 secs to the end.

Over To You

What do you think? Sleep on it, or not? What’s your biggest problem solving tip. If you watched the video, could your problems be solved in a flow state?