I am fortunate enough to still have my grandfather around. This man, who didn't go to school past the 5th grade, is the best engineer that I've ever known. He's never held the title of "engineer," but that man solves problems.
So what is his method?
Whether we were putting on a new roof or sharpening drill bits in his garage, he seemed to move too slowly (for my taste) from one stage of a task to the next. As I grew, I began to realize something. I've never seen him do re-work. How?
Because he took the time to THINK. He had the entire problem mapped out in his head long before his calloused hands touched a tool.
In our society of action and reaction, we rarely take the time to stop and think without the distractions of a cell phone, PC, iPod or people. We need to think outside of life's chaos, possibly in the solitude of an early morning before the rest of the world is awake to whisk us away.
Try it some time. Find at least 15 minutes that you can have with NO distractions. It may be at a park or in the stillness of your kitchen at 5:00AM. Focused thinking about the actions that we need to take relieves stress, makes us more effective and gives us an advantage over the rest of the high-paced non-thinkers of the world.
Let's try to find 15 minutes on our calender this week and take some time to think. You may realize (like I did) that you're pretty rusty when it comes to focused thinking so keep practicing!