“Intelligence is something we are born with. Thinking is a skill that must be learned.”
-Edward de Bono

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Who says a problem can have only one solution? Hello guys, this post is to guide you through an unconventional way of finding numerous solutions to one problem. But, the catch is, we have to use the creative side of our brain and look at a solution that is not very obvious. We will look at fun examples and participate in them to train our brain to think different. In the world of design, there is always a different approach to things. We have to master the art to view things around us from different lenses. To get started, let us do a small exercise.

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This is the picture of a bird. What do you see in the bird? Can you replace any body part of the bird with an object you use daily?

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You can see a stapler in the beak of the bird. This exercise can be performed on a daily basis to get acquainted with the habit of art of lateral thinking. We can take any object that we use daily and try to see something in it. This can be done at any time of the day, while you are eating, travelling or even while you are studying. For example, you are reading from a book, you can take a minute and wonder, “What does this book look like?” book-png-file You can ask questions like “Can this book be a house?”, “Can it be a flying carpet?” and find unconventional things that a book can do. house

Find your object, think out of the box, and generate your own creative lens to look at things. From the next time, thing won’t be boring for you, because you have your different and creative lens to view them.

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One thing that distinguishes a professional thinker from a designer thinker is the power to lateral think. A designer does not work by having a fixed solution to a problem. He has to explore various ways, look at all available options and permute to find many solutions to cater to one problem. Lateral thinking is a tool to make this task fun and easy. A question that is solved using lateral thinking might not have a correct answer or it might have multiple correct answers. But it surely makes our mind exercise. Daily exercise of our mind by using lateral thinking in our daily life will help our mind be sharper. It helps in generation of ideas that are out of box and leads to unconventional solutions to problems. It boosts our problem solving skills and enhances our brain muscles.

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Let us read a few questions that make our mind think out of the box: 1) A man and his son are in a car accident. The father dies on the scene, but the child is rushed to the hospital. When he arrives the surgeon says, “I can’t operate on this boy, he is my son!” How can this be?
(The surgeon was the mother)

2) A man is wearing black. Black shoes, socks, trousers, lumpier, gloves and balaclava. He is walking down a black street with all the street lamps off. A black car is coming towards him with its light off but somehow manages to stop in time. How did the driver see the man?
(It is day time)

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Lateral thinking is not a skill that people inherit from the time they are born. It is a skill that is eventually learnt by practicing it. You can master this skill by performing various fun tasks like looking at objects and trying to visualize what you can see in them. Fun questions that make your mind follow a different path to find the solutions. Performing these activities everyday will pave your way towards being an efficient lateral thinker and a great problem solver.

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