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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   1209 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for July 12, 2026

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

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Has anyone managed to switch from "problem solving" mode to "problem setting?"

I've gotten pretty good at solving problems in my line of work, but I find that I end up hyper focused on particular parts of the whole and frequently lose perspective on the overall situation. I work with a lot of people much smarter than me, but it seems that their advantage over me doesn't come from being better at solving a problem that's in front of them but rather from coming up with new projects that significantly improve the overall situation. They seem to have a kind of big picture view that allows them to say "we're missing X" or "we should do X instead of Y" in a way that reframes the problem or picks up on something people were ignoring.

My default suspicion is that these people just have the stuff that I'm missing, but I'm curious if someone here has managed to reframe their thinking along these lines.

I would say that I began my career doing more problem solving, and I try to retain some of that, but I do a lot more problem setting now. Do you have any specific questions?

Not being sure what you're looking for, I'd maybe say, "You can just do things." Nothing is really stopping you from thinking deeply about the "why" of what you're doing. The scope of your thinking may be limited by the number of folks you can influence into working on the problems you think should be set. There are more formal ways to be able to exert such influence (e.g., you're given some sort of formal authority over resources/people who pretty much have to follow the direction you set), but informal methods work pretty well, too (e.g., you persuade others over time that they should pay attention to the concerns you pose, especially as they see examples of how you posed a problem and it led to important results).

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