I am sure you are familiar with the following types of thinking.
You think about:
What to do
How to do it
However, there is a third type: Thinking about your idea.
This is when you take a step back and think about your idea with regard to the “what,” the “how,” and the results you achieved with your actions.
It’s with this type of thinking that you create new (and refine old) principles for what and how to do things. It’s a never-ending virtuous cycle.
In the above diagram, you see how:
Thinking about what to do generates constraints that help guide your thinking about how to do it.
The results you get from doing, help you think about your idea.
Thinking about your idea generates principles you use to continue thinking about the “what” and “how”.
You constantly think about what to do and how to do it. But I’ll make a guess that’s not the case with thinking about your idea, especially while implementing it.
Adding this type of thinking to your arsenal will make your thinking process more complete. Using all three thinking types will lead to breakthroughs, both in the execution of your idea, and the idea itself.