Analytical or logical thinking includes skills such as ordering, comparing, contrasting, evaluating and selecting. It provides a logical framework for problem solving and helps to select the best alternative from those available by narrowing down the range of possibilities (a convergent process).. Analytical thinking often predominates in solving closed problems, where the many possible causes have to be identified and analysed to find the real cause.

The winning strategy when playing chess, Sudoku, a Rubik’s Cube, or other brain-boosting games is actually to work the problem backward, not forward. The same strategy can apply to realistic strategic-thinking situations. To build up your brain muscle and start thinking differently, practice some logic puzzles and other games.

2-Get a Good Night’s Sleep.
More than any other sleeping or awake state, Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep directly enhances creative processing in the brain. REM sleep helps “stimulate associative networks, allowing the brain to make new and useful associations between unrelated ideas” and are “not due to selective memory enhancements” such as memory consolidation, which occurs when awake.

4-Use Mind Maps to Help Visualize the Problem.
Mind maps, a visual snapshot of a problem and its possible solutions, can help focus the mind, stimulate the brain, increase the capacity for creative thinking, and generate more ideas for solutions. Make a Mind Map by drawing your problem as the central idea. Add “main branches” consisting of all the reasons for the problem. Use “sub-branches” to explore further details.

Next, make a separate Mind Map of all possible solutions to the central problem. Add “main branches” showing all the ways that your problem can be solved, such as colleagues that can help, techniques you can apply, and other resources you can use. Add “sub-branches” to further explore the details. Make a final branch with the most suitable solution for the main problem. Use “sub-branches” for details. Through this exercise, you should be able to see which “branch” or option is the most practical, time-saving, and cost-effective problem solving method.

Divergent answers. Just as genuine problems in math or science allow for multiple strategies and solutions, a discussion-worthy question about a piece of literature should invite multiple interpretations or answers. In Shared Inquiry discussions, considering divergent ideas is what drives students to find deeper meaning in a text.

Ample evidence. As in math or science, for an answer or solution to be sound, there must be relevant reasons behind it. Likewise, ideas about the meaning of literary texts must be supported with the evidence from the work itself. Evidence and reasoning make ideas valid and debatable. Without evidence, ideas are simply guesses.

Opportunities to evaluate evidence. Some pieces of scientific or mathematical data are more compelling than others. The same is true when exploring a question about a rich work of literature. Collaborative discussion is a time for participants to share the evidence that supports their ideas, to weigh that evidence, and to strengthen ideas by debating each other’s assertions or suggesting additional evidence.

Collaboration. A good discussion question, or problem, is one that students want to work on together. Just as students benefit from combining their skills and perspectives when solving a math or science problem, discussing an interpretive question as a group yields more thoughtful and considered answers than if students had worked alone. Follow-up questions that ask students to clarify, elaborate, and explain their ideas help deepen and enliven the conversation.

With productive thinking, the objective is to create different approaches and consider even the least obvious or likely approaches. Creative problem solving creates a willingness to keep looking for different approaches, even if a promising solution has been found to a problem. Rigid thinking tends to produce an inability in solving problems because such problem-solving methods rely on the past experiences to be successful. Such problem-solving methods, are thus, called reproductive thinking.

The main reason for highly productive creative thinkers to create so many rich, varied and divergent ideas is that they look for a new perspective that no one might have considered. The first step of creative problem solving, hence, is to re-visualize a problem in many unique ways. The first few ways of viewing a problem might be too reproductive to come up with unique solutions.

With each different layer of restructuring, the understanding of the problem improves, which brings the thinker to the root of the problem. At this point, a creative thinker abandons all the reproductive thinking steps that stem from their past experiences and re-conceptualizes the problem. Another noted ability of creative thinkers is that they can manage to operate between ambivalent opinions and incompatible subjects.