Thinking Backwards Is Key to Solving Your Problems
“You can only connect the dots looking backwards” — Steve Jobs.
Try to solve this puzzle:
A bacteria doubles every twenty-four hours. It takes thirty days to fills a lake. On what day is the lake half-full?
Guess fast; the answer is quite easy. Did you find it?
Don’t feel bad if this seems hard at first glance. Because you’re trying to solve the problem forward, it’s hard to see the answer right away. Try again by looking at the problem backwards. Here’s how to do it:
The lake is filled on day thirty. How about on day twenty-nine? Since the bacteria doubles every twenty-four hours, this means it should be half-full on day twenty-nine. Easy peasy, right?
Some problems are hard to solve unless you look at them backwards. Only then you can find the right answers. This technique is called retrograde analysis or thinking backwards.
To be a great problem solver, make a habit of thinking backwards about the difficulties you face. Here’s how to do it.
How to Be Successful by Working Backwards
Consider the problem of decluttering your house. If you try to get rid of unnecessary items by thinking, “What are the things I don’t need in my house?” You’ll end up keeping much of your stuff. Instead, think of this situation backwards: “What items I need every day?” It gets easier to number the things you need and discard everything else.
Thinking backwards is a great strategy to set goals and succeed at them. Suppose you want to lose twelve pounds or even publish a book in six months. In this case, working backwards will help you come up with a good execution plan. Here’s an execution plan that comes by working backwards from your desired outcome:
- Twelve pounds lost in six months is two pounds lost per month.
- Two pounds lost per month is half a pound lost per week.
- Knowing your weekly target, adjust your diet and workout until you start losing half a pound per week.
Similarly, if you want to publish a hundred pages book, work backwards to know the daily word count target. A hundred pages book is, on average, 45000 words, which means:
- Forty-five thousand words in six months are 7500 per month.
- Seven thousand five hundred words per month are 1875 words per week.
- One thousand eight hundred seventy-five words per week are 375 words per day, excluding weekends.
As you can see, working backwards makes the path to the outcome very clear and much more obvious. Besides, you can customise the strategies to fit your needs and circumstances as you move forward.
Start with the end in mind. Then move from the outcome back to your current conditions.
How did you get from the future to the present? Do you see things more clearly? Are specific strategies taking shape?
Whether you’re starting a business, looking for a career move, learning new things, thinking backwards is a great way to overcome your most difficult challenges. It helps you do things in ways you’d normally never consider from thinking forwards.
