Thinking course by Edward De Bono's ~ 3 minutes read

I finished this book in April 2021. I recommend it 9/10.

The book is about optimizing your thinking, decision making, and problem-solving.

This book is not particularly well-written, but it did make me think about thinking—and that was the point. As you will see in the note section, there were many tools provided; these seem obvious, but it seems very practical to have handy when spelled out. Get your copy here.

My thoughts and notes:

• PMI - Should most especially be used when we have no doubt about the situation but have instantly decided that we like it or don't like it.

  • P stands for Plus or good points.

  • M stands for Minus or bad points.

  • I stand for Interesting or interesting points.

• APC - Helps make deliberate effort to generate alternatives at a given point.

  • A stands for Alternatives.

  • P stands for Possibilities.

  • C stands for Choices.

• Look for patterns. An example could be that you get a letter with difficult handwriting. You might find a word you recognize, and from there, you break down the shape of each letter in that word—giving you a pattern to try to solve other words in the letter.

• Use lateral thinking to shake to process.

  • What if cups were made of ice

  • What if you could only dial one digit on a phone

  • What if you got paid for taking the bus

  • What if there is a school examination every day

  • What if fat people got paid more

  • What if paper goes black after one week

• CAF (Consider All Factors) and C & S (Consequence and Sequel) are tools designed to counter the tendency for thinking to be ego-centric and very short term.

• EBS (Examine Both Sides) and ADI (Agreement, Disagreement, and Irrelevance) and OPV (Other Peoples Views) are the standard thinking in the western world of courts and politics.

• AGO This is an attention-directing "thinking tool" which is very simple to use; it can be difficult to use in practice.

  • Aims

  • Goals

  • Objective

• TEC is a very simple structure for focusing thinking and making it a deliberate task.

  • Target and Task

  • Expand and Explore

  • Contract and Conclude

    • Telephone

      • Target and Task:

        • New design of telephone

        • Correct some faults

        • Additional functions to be added to telephone

        • Some new type of telephone service

        • Concentrate on some major defect

        • Perhaps interruption is one of these.

        • Ways of coping with telephone interruption

      • Expand and Explore:

      • Contract and Conclude

• PISCO A rather fuller framework is provided than TEC; you can even combine TEC and PISCO

  • Purpose (What's expected as the end-product?)

  • Input (Use CAF, C&S, OPV)

  • Solutions (Narrow down the options)

  • Choice (Take a look at the choices and alternatives)

  • Operation (What are the steps to be taken?)