#ThinkfullyHabit: Break down
You are taken into a room with a table which has three items laid out i) a box of tacks ii) a book of matches iii) a candle. Your task is to attach the candle to the wall using any of the items available, without the candle wax dripping onto the table below. What do you do?
Breaking a problem down into its smallest component parts can be one of the most simple and effective ways to work something out.
“Divide each difficulty into as many parts as is feasible and necessary to resolve it.”
WHY?
We can feel weighed down by the enormity or magnitude of a problem when we can’t figure out where to start. In fact, problems are often multiple challenges packaged up together, so unpicking these systematically can help us to make fresh sense of the challenge and see things more clearly. It also has the added bonus of making it feel more manageable and doable.
And if you’re still stuck? The best advice is to keep breaking the problem down even further, until it becomes a problem that’s small enough to start tackling. Like the proverb goes, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.”
Deconstructing the problem into its component parts is also the way into solving the candle problem. What would you try? If you are like 75% of the people who took part in what is known as ‘Duncker’s candle problem’ (named after the cognitive psychologist Karl Duncker who devised the test), you are likely to try one of two routes. The first is to try tacking the candle to the wall and the second is to light the candle and use the dripping wax to attach it to the wall. Both routes fail. Neither the tacks nor the wax are strong enough to hold the candle in position. Few people find the solution immediately and it typically requires further breakdown of the problem to get to the solution.
Once you realise that the box of tacks is actually two things – the first is the box and the second, the tacks, you are probably more likely to get to the solution. Once deconstructed in this way, the solution becomes far more evident; revealing what you may have overlooked and giving rise to more options than first appears.
If you’re still wondering, the answer is to take the tacks out of the box, tack the box to the wall, light the candle so the wax begins to drip into the box. You can then place the candle onto the softened wax to secure it into place. Hey presto! Breaking things down can be the path to illumination.