How to Think

Thinking is something that happens naturally in each individual, but there are ways to deepen your thinking abilities. It takes time and practice to become a better thinker, but it's a process you can hone all your life. Being a better thinker and keeping your mind sharp can help your mental and physical health in the long run!

Understanding Different Thinking Styles

Understand different types of thinking. There isn't one right way to think about things. Instead there are lots of ways of thinking, some of which are more effective than others. You'll need to learn different types of thinking, to better understand your own thinking processes as well as the thought processes of others.

Learn conceptual thinking. This is basically learning to find patterns and connections between abstract ideas so that you can form a whole picture. For example: you might use conceptual thinking during a chess game. You might look at the board and think "this configuration of pieces looks familiar" and use that to move your pieces based on how you see the pattern playing out.

Learn to think intuitively. This is basically what it means to operate on gut instinct (you should only operate on gut instinct). Often your brain is processing more than you realize, and that's gut instinct. For example: deciding you don't want to date a seemingly nice guy because your gut warns you off, and finding out later that he's a convicted sex offender; your brain was picking up on certain signals that you might not have been consciously aware of.

Learn the 5 thinking styles. Harrison and Bramson in The Art of Thinking postulated 5 thinking styles: synthesists, idealists, pragmatists, analysts, realists. Knowing where you fall and what styles you tend to use can help you better utilize your own thinking patterns. You can fall into one style or more than one, but using a variety of these styles can help you more effectively use your thinking.

Synthesists tend to enjoy conflict (they like to "play devil's advocate") and they tend towards asking "what if" type questions. However, they use that conflict to fuel their own creativity and can often do better seeing the whole picture.

Idealists more often look at the whole of a picture rather than just one component. They tend to be more interested in people and feelings than facts and numbers, and they prefer to think and plan for the future.

Pragmatists are the type that prefer to do "whatever works." They do well with quick thinking and short term planning and are usually creative and quite adaptable to change. Sometimes they seem to do things "on the fly" without any sort of plan whatsoever.

Analysts tend to try and break down problems into their specific components rather than dealing with it as a whole. They make lists and organize things and use lots of detail, so that their lives and problems remain orderly.

Realists are no-nonsense. They ask hard questions and tend to do whatever is required to solve a problem. They have a good grasp on the problem at hand and the tools with which they can solve it. They also tend to be more aware of what their limitations are. Most people have at least some measure of the realist in them.

Build up your critical thinking skills. Critical thinking is when you objectively analyze a situation or information by gathering lots of information and facts from different sources. Then you evaluate the situation based on the information you've gathered.

This basically means not taking things based on assumptions, not assuming that someone knows what they are talking about, and investigating things for yourself.

You will also need to understand how your own biases and perspectives color things, as well as what biases and perspectives other people present. You will have to challenge the assumptions you make based on your world view.