Twelve Favorite Problems

Chapter 4 Building a Second Brain

You have to keep a dozen of your favorite problems constantly present in your mind, although by and large they will lay in a dormant state. Every time you hear or read a new trick or a new result, test it against each of your twelve problems to see whether it helps. Every once in a while there will be a hit, and people will say, “How did he do it? He must be a genius!

— Richard Feynman

Ask yourself, “What are the questions I’ve always been interested in?” This could include grand, sweeping questions like “How can we make society fairer and more equitable?” as well as practical ones like “How can I make it a habit to exercise every day?” It might include questions about relationships, such as “How can I have closer relationships with the people I love?” or productivity, like “How can I spend more of my time doing high-value work?”

Guidelines:

• Ask people close to you what you were obsessed with as a child (often you’ll continue to be fascinated with the same things as an adult).
• Don’t worry about coming up with exactly twelve (the exact number doesn’t matter, but try to come up with at least a few).
• Don’t worry about getting the list perfect (this is just a first pass, and it will always be evolving).
• Phrase them as open-ended questions that could have multiple answers (in contrast to “yes/no” questions with only one answer).

Childhood memory

As a child I always wanted to become useful. A productive member of society. I did not understand how people with no skills were content. Becoming useful was my first problem