There are a lot of smart people in the world, no doubt about it.

But most of them don’t spend much time thinking.

I mean, sure, their brains process information as they walk around all day. Sometimes they actually come up with some pretty nifty solutions to interesting problems while they’re at it.

Most of that thinking is reactive, however.

There’s nothing wrong with reactive thinking. I’m glad my brain works reactively to make quick decisions, keep me safe, carry on conversations like a normal human without minutes of silence between responses while I mull over what to say next.

When I say most people don’t think, I’m talking about deliberate, focused, strategic thinking on a specific topic or challenge.

As people trying to solve interesting problems in a way that changes people for the better, this then is our opportunity.

The way I see it, there are 5 reasons why most people (and maybe even you) don’t utilize their brains to their fullest potential.

1. Thinking Time Is A Luxury

We’re all busy. We’ve all got more on our to-do lists than will fit into the day already, not to mention all the new items that will have been added by day’s end.

With so much to do, even if we’d like to block off some time every month, week, or even day for deliberate, strategic thinking, invariably, some fire or other flares up that requires our immediate attention.

It’s no surprise that the first thing to be dropped from our schedule in those cases is that block of what looks suspiciously like “free time,” time that we may not expect to result in a defined outcome, time without an immediately measurable ROI, time with no urgency or outside expectation to it.

For the better part of two years, I’ve struggled to book off the last Friday of every month as a strategy day where I do little but think about the big picture of my business.

It was a day that I looked forward to every month, and without fail, I was sure that the time I spent in focused thought would surely result in my next breakthrough.

In reality, I’ve probably only really completed 5 of these days.

In every other instance, something came up that I felt couldn’t be ignored and out the window went the luxury strategic thinking day.

I’ve since moved away from the infrequent large blocks of thinking time to shorter chunks scheduled daily.

I’ll often set aside as little as 15 minutes to brainstorm on a problem, something I’ve come to refer to as a Brainstorming Sprint. Once I start, however, it’s not uncommon to get sucked in, and pretty soon everything else on my todo list starts to look a little less important.

But in order to get sucked into our brainstorming, we first need to know what problem we’re trying to solve.

2. You Need A Defined Problem

If we’re able to block of the time for focussed thought, we run into a second challenge.

Often, we don’t actually know what the problem is that we’re trying to solve, or what we should be thinking about.

Most of our projects are of a scale that won’t be solved by simply sitting down and thinking on them for an hour, or even a day.

The sheer size leaves us first procrastinating on putting any thought toward them because we can’t imagine where to start, and then spending any time we do dedicate to the problem looking at the project as a whole and vainly striving to elegantly solve it all in one fell swoop.

What we need to do instead is find traction first.

Recently, I sat down to spend an hour thinking about the Podcast Marketing Course I’m working on.

I had roughly mapped out the modules about a month before, but hadn’t put any more time towards it since and now wasn’t quite sure where everything was at.

As I sat down I went through my notes, zooming in and out on each of the six modules in the course, going through the bullet points under each subsection and subsection’s subsection until I was thoroughly lost, overwhelmed, and completely sure the project was worthless and would most certainly fail if I ever completed and released it.

After half an hour of flailing about, not knowing which chunk of the elephant to bite off first, I forced myself to reset, look at one specific module of the course and methodically work through the outline for that section thoroughly and in order of presentation.

With focus and constraints on what I was thinking about, I was almost immediately able to lock in and think through what the necessary points that needed to be conveyed were, rough out student worksheets, and do some research on necessary examples to illustrate those points.

An hour later, the outline of the module was not only complete, but more detailed and thoughtful than I had originally anticipated it would be.

Sometimes, you might need to spend an hour, or day even, simply breaking down the larger, amorphous problem into a series of smaller, understandable problems that can each be solved in one sitting.

I’ve found that often, projects I’ve worked on have stalled and been procrastinated on for months only really felt hard because there were a few key decisions that needed to be made before the work could start.

In the end, months of procrastination and lack of clarity have often been solved by decisions that were made with 5 minutes of focused thought.

We’re ridiculous creatures us humans.

3. Thinking Is Hard

A lot of the problems we’re trying to solve are long-term projects, many of which with no clear, defined path to solving.

Sometimes we have a roadmap at our disposal from someone who’s done something similar before, but not always.

We might sit down, start at a blank page in front of us, get bored, check-in on Twitter and next-thing-you-know-our-scheduled-time-is–up-and-thank-God-it-is-cuz-that-was-uncomfortable-and-unproductive-and-I’m-never-doing-that-again.

As we already discussed, you first need a clear problem that you’re working on defined to maximize your thinking time, but even once you have that, the scope of the problem can be overwhelming.

I find that it’s often the blank page that is the greatest barrier at this phase. We feel like we should write something but don’t have any thoughts to actually write.

So we keep staring at the page and end up thinking about thinking instead of thinking about the problem at hand.

I like to start by writing down any questions I know will need to be answered, even if I don’t know the answers. I’ll also write down topics that I need to research and learn more about and then do some research and find articles, books, etc on the topics.

I may not read them then, but I’ll bookmark them and past the URLs in my brainstorming document.

We all think and work through problems in different ways, so experiment and find what works best for you. It might be pen and paper, digital note apps, voice memos that you then transcribe, mood boards, or anything else.

I like bullet points and expandable lists so I do most of my brainstorming in Workflowy, but I know some people who are much more visual and use tools like Milanote to create more robust mood boards.

Use what works best for you and just start writing, sketching or creating something. Get past the barrier of the blank page and the floodgates will often open.

4. Productive Thinking Takes Discipline + Habit

I’ve come to think of my thinking sessions much like a meditation practice, but instead of clearing my mind I aim to intentionally follow my curiosity down whatever trails it wants to follow.

Much like meditation, I feel I’m able to get more benefit from the practice by building a routine around it and approaching it with discipline.

Even when things are busy, I still set aside 15–30 minutes to work on some problem or other.

When I’m not feeling particularly creative or in the mood and would rather work on something else, I force myself to settle in and spend that time thinking.

Sure, sometimes it doesn’t amount to much, but some of my most productive sessions have come after telling myself I’d just spend 15 minutes thinking on a problem just to fulfill my obligation to myself, and 2 hours later have filled pages with notes and am clearer on the big picture solution.

I’ve come to suspect that “not being in the mood” or “feeling uninspired” is just Resistance in disguise, and as such now redouble my resolve to push through those feelings when they arise.

5. We Have An Idyllic View Of Thinking

When I first started my ill-fated Last Friday of the Month Strategy Day policy, I had a whole ritual around the day.

I would start the day with a walk to clear my head, calibrate myself for what I was working on, and then head to one of my favourite coffee shops to post up for the day.

I’d fill out a monthly assessment and planning questionnaire that I had created to start things off in a structured way, and then get into more free-form thinking and brainstorming.

After lunch I’d go for another walk and end up somewhere else cozy to work for a couple more hours. In the evening I’d treat myself to a nice dinner and maybe do something fun that I’d been putting off indulging in.

The days were fantastic, and you can probably see why I looked forward to them. But they weren’t sustainable.

While I loved the ritual and it worked to put me in the right headspace, I had become convinced that only when all the conditions were right could I do any thinking and strategizing that would amount in a breakthrough of any kind.

Many of us have an idealized view of the philosopher, poet, writer, isolated somewhere in a cabin in the woods, free of distraction, free to tap into their best work and biggest ideas uninterrupted.

The problem is that for most of us, these circumstances will never come about, and even if they did, I think many of us would be disappointed with the results.

Better instead to take your conception of a strategy or deep thinking session down off of its pedestal and turn it into something more rugged and durable.

Build a practice where you can tap into your most creative ideas and solve interesting problems in the most uninspiring locations.

Sure, Walden Pond is a more romantic locale than an office cubicle or a poorly lit basement suite apartment, but if that’s what you’ve been given, learn to tune out your surroundings and let your mind run free regardless of where you are physically.

Tap Into Your Genius

Since beginning my structured Brainstorming Sprints, I’ve found myself procrastinating less, making more headway on the ideas I have, and coming up with more ideas overall.

I’m convinced that this says less about me than it does about the benefit that we can all get from making space for focussed thought.

We all have ideas that could result in meaningful work if only given a little chance to breathe, to ruminate, to explore their surroundings. Too often, however, they get crowded out by client work, social obligations, or our own Resistance telling us not to look any closer because it’s a stupid idea that will never work and you don’t even know how to approach it anyway…

Push back on Resistance, define your problem, and let your genius breath.

One day, we may all thank you for it.