A while ago I was reading about mental models and came across this article about Inversion. The following sentence from that article intrigued me –

Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance

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If you go by the face value of it, it might seem like there isn’t much to it. More often than not, we tend to focus on making sure we improve certain features of a project we are working on. Instead, if we take the following approach, we can get to a safer outcome –

• Define the problem – what is the outcome that you’re trying to achieve?
• Invert it – what would guarantee the failure of achieving this outcome?
• Finally, consider solutions to avoid this failure

This is a great way to start projects and progress through them.