A good strategy on all but the most trivial of problems.
When you are stuck with a problem and you’re not sure how to solve it always think “how can I invert the problem?”
Examples
- Instead of asking yourself “how do I do this hard thing?”, ask yourself “what would make this thing not hard?”
- See hotdog eating in the Reframe the Problem to Find the Solution note.
- Instead of trying to brute force the front door open, check to make sure there are no back doors that might be easier.
- Question the constraints. Certain “thou shalt” may actually be nullified by a designed solution, making the requirement into a variant of The XY Problem.