Questions to questions

Sup guys, welcome back to the logs! Good to see you guys again. In today's article, I want to share a method that I have been using for problem solving. Say less, let's begin.

Preface

How do you guys usually solve a problem? A few years ago, I found out I had a habit that had been helping me to fully understand a problem, make better decisions, and become a strong problem solver.

After gathering all the thoughts, I named the method "Questions to questions", which is also today's title.

And you might be thinking, "Why does a question lead to another question instead of an answer?".

I mean — most of the time, it will eventually lead to an answer. But in reality, not everything has an answer or you can't reach it in the first place. If we can't find the answer, at least we can try to comprehend a question deeply to get more thoughts and ideas, right? This is the main point that I wanted to give out.

So, if you follow this method, it will make you clearer on problem understanding and decision making. I would say it will benefit you in basically EVERYTHING.

How did I find this?

I didn't notice it when I started to use this method on problem solving, even to this day. It's already been a while since I realized "this is the way I've been using to 'actually' solve problems", which is driven by curiosity and intuition. What I mean by "actually" is — generally you don't really disassemble a big problem completely and solve it at the beginning. It's more like a progressive process which is built by questions. The next section is the backbone of this article.

Why dive into it instead of staying on its surface?

Let me give an example. You find a stain suddenly appearing on a white wall, and that annoys you when you see it, you definitely don't want to leave it. If you only stay on the surface of the problem, you might just repaint it and hope it won't happen again somehow. In contrast, if you dive into it, you're probably thinking "What caused this stain?", "How do I make sure it won't happen again?". Then you dig through all the decisions and get the best solution — finally fix it from the source.

Did you see the difference?

The former did fix the problem, which was only temporary. But the latter one, it solved the problem completely from the origin, at least you don't have to worry about it happening again for a while.

Even though both methods work in different aspects, for the long term — there's a huge difference. Especially for important things, it would probably cause a lot of damage if you underestimate the risk or the problem, or even the benefits.

How it works?

It's a process of digging into a problem. Let's reuse the example above. You've got a leak, you probably would start with "Why is there a stain on the wall?". Maybe continue with "How can I solve this?". And you come up with more questions.

"Where is the leakage?" "What kind of tools do I need?" "Should I just call a plumber to get me fix it?"

Right here, you start to think about what you actually want. And it faintly hardens the understanding of the problem, which also makes the problem and the decision clearer. Suddenly, you realize you've cleared out a bunch of options, making the decision a lot easier to make.

That's all! That's the whole method! It's not complicated, right?

The benefits

The reason why I promise this method could help you with EVERYTHING is — everything in our life needs to be comprehended. So it's just a difference in the depth of understanding, everyone is a problem solver in their own life. Once you fully understand and solve a problem — you could apply it to similar problems. And then you become a strong problem solver.

A bonus in this era

AI has grown a lot in recent years, everyone and every company is trying to introduce AI into daily tasks and work. Apparently, communicating with AI is more common these days, so how to use it effectively is very important. STOP throwing meaningless questions straight to AI, something like "Fix this without mistakes"(LOL). One of the important things is "Ask better questions", ask with your comprehension.