Without naming a software tooling I was recently using, I so surprised that it lacked a feature I wanted to use. So surprised in fact, that I figured another user must have already entered it as a feature enhancement. When I went to there enhancement request system, I could not find it. I am active their forum and while I found an active discussion about the feature (and several proposed work-arounds), it is clearly not in the immediate future. What was I to do? Further, this was just one step along the way to solving a much larger problem.
After several days wondering what I would do and pondering the work-arounds discussed on the forum, suddenly a solution to towards the larger problem emerged. Strange, but I am convinced that if the original feature had existed, I would still be chasing the larger solution
What happened? Three key things that I can think of:
- I thought about more how my feature would have helped with with the larger problem.
- I collaborated with others on the forum to see their struggles and possible solutions.
- My mind continued the work the problem.
What can we theorize about this last point? My spouse is a special education teacher and statistics show that a "practiced skill" must be repeated 27 times to completed with 80% accuracy. I no doubt read about 2 dozen solutions on the forum/news group and I am sure my mind worked it at least that many times.
Stuck on a problem? Seek out others, listen to them, think about what they are saying. Then let your mind "riff" (27 times) on all of it.
