Forgive me. This is not an insult to others, but more about us — or perhaps more precisely, our conscious mind. So, within that context, I feel it's OK to say quite frankly: he's an Idiot.

Don't get me wrong, just because he's an Idiot doesn't mean he's not useful. Your conscious mind is good at some things — reasoning, logic, voluntary movement. He's good at rudimentary sequential tasks. However, he is limited to only doing one thing at a time. That idea of multi-tasking? It's been proven to be a myth. Your conscious brain is physically incapable of it.

Here are some other things it cannot do: deep-level problem solving and creative thinking. So if not him, who — or what — is doing that stuff?

"Give the subconscious mind a problem, and you'll be amazed by what it returns. It goes away, gathers inspiration, joins seemingly unrelated dots and creates a new story that helps you move forward."

Welcome to your subconscious mind. Your genie in a bottle. Many times the capacity and processing power of the conscious mind. He won't help you ride a bike — he leaves that to the Idiot — but he might help you come up with an idea for a better one.

The problem is that the conscious mind also controls your access to the subconscious. Give it a problem, and it won't come back with a smart answer. It'll give you the logical thing, the obvious thing, the thing it already knows how to do. If you solely relied on it, you wouldn't learn anything worthwhile or make any leaps of progress.

However, the subconscious doesn't really like rules or such mundane things as deadlines. It'll come back when it's good and ready. And when it does, its wisdom often gets stuck — because there is an Idiot in the way, standing sentry, stopping it getting out. The Idiot is far too busy focusing on the next task to listen to its wiser sibling.

Every wondered why you have your best ideas in the shower? It's partly because the Idiot is still half asleep — but mainly because while you sleep your subconscious has been busy. In sleep, it's refreshed, active, inspired. It's had hours where it hasn't been fed banal tasks. And then, while you distracted the Idiot with the task of washing, it slips out a great idea.

You may also notice this happens during physical exercise. Keep the Idiot busy pumping cranks or shuffling feet, and often the problem you'd been struggling with magically becomes easier to solve — with much better quality of thinking than the Idiot was capable of.

So, if you want to solve anything beyond rudimentary problems, here's what to do:

  1. Clearly define the problem. Write it down. The Idiot is more inclined to pass it to the subconscious if it knows the problem is well-defined and beyond its own capabilities.
  2. Go back and make sure that is the actual problem. Get the reasoning brain to ask some good questions. Garbage in still equals garbage out.
  3. A short brainstorm with others can help clarify the problem and point it in a direction.
  4. When that brainstorm stalls — as it will, exhausted by its own logic — stop. The Idiot has done its work. Post carefully into the subconscious and walk away.
  5. Ideally, sleep on it. Failing that, go for a ride or a walk.
  6. Come back and check in on it. Little and often. Occasionally the subconscious goes off on a tangent — get the Idiot to apply some logic and drag it back on track.
  7. Nudge and nurture it with inspiration. Read things, look at things, talk to people with different outlooks. Rich crops don't come from barren lands.
  8. Capture the outputs. Have something to record ideas at all times. The conscious mind has very little memory capacity — capture is everything.
  9. At every possible opportunity: cook, meditate, run, ride, make, play. Anything to keep the Idiot quiet or busy.
  10. When the inspiration comes, give it back to the Idiot to do something practical with — make a plan, write the thing, tell others. It's good at that stuff.

Even Idiots have their uses.