How do I become a better thinker? How do I actively cultivate the skill of thinking outside the box, drawing insights from disparate facts, and consistently discovering uncharted intellectual territory?

← Quora archive · 2011 Aug 21, 2011 02:06 PM PDT

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I just wrote a post on my blog trying to generalize some of my thoughts from that answer to other domains.

http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2011/0...

Applying the ideas in the post to this question, you can become a better thinker by:

Rethinking ideas that interest you over and over again as you learn more through reading, experience etc. For instance, if "good vs. evil" interests you, keep revisiting that problem over many years.
Reuse your own ideas. Reference your own ideas/concepts/principles/theories over and over again as you ponder new questions and themes. If you've come up with something you call (say) the "biscotti theory of industrialization" keep applying it to every new question, news item etc.
Release your thinking to the broader world in some form. Early and often. Whether as writing, code, artwork, meeting management behaviors, whatever. You don't have to necessarily talk about or explain your thinking itself. You just need to have it inform your behavior in a systematic way.

Hope that helps.