Author: Maria Konnikova
Maria Konnikova
Reading time: 22 minutes
Synopsis
Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes (2013) shows what makes the famous detective Sherlock Holmes so smart. It explains his scientific way of thinking, which uses focus, observation, and logical steps. These Blinks describe what we can learn from Sherlock Holmes and how we can use his skills and thinking habits in our daily lives.
What’s in it for you: Learn to think like the famous detective.
“When you have removed the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.”
Sherlock Holmes is one of the smartest thinkers in books. No one else can make such brilliant guesses and surprise us with their quick mind. So, who wouldn’t want to be as clever as him? The author Maria Konnikova has admired him since she was a child. Her book, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, looks closely at how Sherlock Holmes thinks.
In the following Blinks, you will get step-by-step advice on Sherlock Holmes’s way of thinking. Many people think he was born a genius. But he simply learned a very clear way to watch situations and make good decisions. With patience and practice, we can all learn to turn off our usual way of thinking. We can become as aware and observant as Sherlock Holmes.
Learn about Holmes’s thinking methods and find out:
- how the “halo effect” often tricks Watson,
- how to store important information in your long-term memory, and
- why even the most unlikely solution might be the right one.
Blink 1 – Our brain has two ways to think.
Be honest – when was the last time you really thought hard? When did you work on a truly difficult problem for a long time? This happens quite rarely. For most of the time, our brain’s “autopilot” is enough.
Here is an example of how this autopilot can trick you: You buy a table tennis racket and a ball. The total cost is 11 Euros. The racket costs 10 Euros more than the ball. How much does the ball cost? Most people think: 1 Euro!
And just like that – you’ve been fooled by your autopilot. The correct answer is 50 cents. If the racket costs 10 Euros more than the ball, then the racket is 10.50 Euros and the ball is 50 cents. Why do we make this simple math mistake? It’s simple: We rely too much on our autopilot. It always chooses the easiest answer. It usually takes the most comfortable path. But sometimes, it would be better to use more of our brain to think.
These two main thinking systems in the human brain are clearly seen in Sherlock Holmes and his helper, Dr. Watson. Watson’s autopilot is easily sidetracked. He is happy with the first answer he finds. But Holmes would never fall for the racket-ball question. Nothing outside of him would affect his thinking.
For example, Holmes and Watson once went to the countryside on a nice spring afternoon to look into a murder case. Watson let the beautiful view and mild weather make him feel lazy and happy. This is not the best mood for an investigation. Holmes, however, stayed focused and kept looking for small details.
In the next Blinks, you will learn step-by-step how to train your inner Holmes and outsmart your inner Watson.
Blink 2 – The Holmes system means thinking carefully and deeply.
We all know the Watson autopilot. But what makes the Holmes system special? The main point is his attention. When Sherlock Holmes thinks, he does not get distracted. He notices even the smallest details. Emotions or quick reactions do not influence him. He always stays logical.
This careful way of thinking helps him gather a lot of information from details that others would not even see. When Holmes first meets Watson, he immediately knows about Watson’s army past, even before Watson says a word.
To do this, Holmes just needs to combine a few details about Watson’s look: His tan – he was probably in the tropics recently. His straight posture – probably from the military. His serious face – he has seen bad things. His wounded arm – he was probably in a war. And because he is introduced as Dr. Watson, Holmes immediately knows: Watson was an army doctor in the recent war in Afghanistan!
However, thinking in “Holmes-mode” uses more brain energy. In the example with the table tennis racket and ball, you have to try hard to turn off the Watson autopilot. Then, with the help of your inner Holmes, you can find the right answer.
But this energy is always a good investment. If you make it a habit to think like Sherlock Holmes, you would not only solve a murder case faster and better than Dr. Watson. You would also make better and more logical choices in your normal daily life.
Blink 3 – To activate your inner Sherlock Holmes, you need practice and motivation.
You can only overcome your inner Watson and bring out your inner Sherlock Holmes with one thing: practice, practice, and more practice. This might sound a bit boring at first, but it is necessary. Your brain can learn new facts quickly. But to learn new ways of thinking, it needs some time.
Many studies in psychology show that practice plays a much bigger role in how our brain develops than natural talent. So, don’t worry if you have enough natural smarts – we all have an inner Sherlock Holmes. We just need to bring him out.
The best way to do this is to train specific parts of the brain with special exercises. Science has proven that this works. For example, there was an experiment where one group of people learned to juggle, and another group did not. After some time of practice, brain scientists clearly showed that the juggling group had developed new brain parts. These parts were responsible for coordinating what they saw and how they moved.
But to get these changes in the “Holmes part” of your brain, you need a second thing: motivation. Only people who are truly motivated will manage to change their way of thinking. At first, it is hard to control your inner Watson. But once you start, it will become easier.
It is a fact that motivated people not only learn faster and more easily. They also get higher scores in IQ tests and better grades overall. Psychologists call this kind of motivation “rage to master”: the strong desire to become very good at something.
If you can motivate yourself like this and are ready to practice a lot and regularly, nothing will stop your inner Sherlock Holmes.
Blink 4 – Our brain is like an attic that we can fill and tidy up.
To truly understand what we want to copy from Holmes, it’s important to first understand how our brain stores information.
Holmes himself often called his brain an “attic in the head.” Modern research shows he was right with this idea. Like most attics, the brain simply contains things and their order. So, just as you sort old stuff into shelves and boxes during spring cleaning in your attic, you can also easily rearrange information and experiences in your mind. This helps you find them more easily and makes things clearer.
However, unlike most attics, this process happens automatically in the brain. New information comes in. This means an old piece of information is moved out. Whether we kick the old information out of the way, and it ends up in a corner, or if it is neatly put into an easy-to-reach drawer depends on us.
The brain can be divided into two different areas. One area stores information permanently. The other area removes information after a while if we don’t need it anymore. Important information should go into long-term memory. This is like the locked filing cabinet in our mind’s attic. It should not go into a cardboard box that we will throw away next week. But first, you need to decide if a piece of information is important and if you want to remember it later.
To stop important things from accidentally ending up in the cardboard box, it helps to know where in the filing cabinet the information belongs. In practice, this means you need to make such information as easy to use as possible. You should link it to existing information. For example, when Holmes learns details in a murder case, he connects them to information from other cases. He tries to remember things like specific smells and sounds.
This is the trick to storing an event or information specifically in your long-term memory: Gather as much background around this information as possible. Connect it mentally with other similar events.
Blink 5 – Biases and shortcuts often lead to thinking errors.
Even if we know the best way to store information in the brain, the question remains: do we draw the right conclusions from it?
There are some traps on the path to logical thinking. One of these is heuristics – simple rules that help us make quick decisions. For example, the “availability heuristic” means you only use information that easily comes to mind when making a decision. But there is always much more information that you simply don’t have available. Because of this, we often make wrong decisions due to not knowing enough.
Also, we are often unknowingly led by biases. For example, there is the “halo effect.” This means that one specific quality can make your overall opinion of a person positive or negative. When Dr. Watson met a client he found very attractive, he thought everything about her was nice, innocent, and good. From a distance, this is a very illogical way to think. But most people fall for it sooner or later.
However, thinking, which seems so reliable and logical, is not only affected by biases and quick rules. It also depends on outside things like the weather. Studies show that stock traders make riskier choices on sunny days because they feel more hopeful. On a rainy day, however, more people sign up for universities. This is because we can focus better on work-related topics when the weather is bad.
You can easily become more aware of these influences on your own thinking by doing a self-test. Just stop at any random thought and ask yourself: Am I following a bias right now? What information might I be missing? Am I influenced by my mood or even by the weather in my judgment?
In many cases, you will quickly spot at least one of these factors. The more often you take time to notice how your own conclusions can be influenced, the more likely you will get warning signs for truly important decisions. Only if you know your stumbling blocks can you avoid them on your way to making logical judgments.
Blink 6 – Sometimes we should stop and take a step back.
As thinkers who analyze things, we should not rush into every new situation. We should not try to connect things quickly. Instead, we must approach a problem carefully. The first step is to take a step back. If you want to solve a problem well, speed is not important. Accuracy is. For this, it’s best to take a short break first.
During this break, you should take in the whole scene. What does it look like around you? How does it smell? How does it sound? Who is there? For example, when Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson examine a walking stick left behind in a murder case, Dr. Watson describes the stick as stylish and of good quality. He is already caught in typical thinking. He falls for the “halo effect” and thinks the owner of such a stick must also be stylish and good.
Holmes, on the other hand, is not interested in the owner. He examines the stick itself and focuses on the situation around it. What is special about the stick? Where was it found? How was it lying?
Also, taking a step back helps you clearly define your goals. Try to understand what you want to find out and what that means for your next steps. This helps you focus on the right details in the first place. It helps you look for a solution, instead of just randomly searching through information like looking for a needle in a haystack.
This is how Holmes found the answer to the mystery: The walking stick had strange bite marks.
So, the next time you face a new problem, don’t just jump in with ideas and guesses. Instead, take a short break. Define both the situation around the problem and your goals, before you start working on the problem itself.
Blink 7 – To observe accurately, we must train our perception.
Once we have an overview of the situation and our goals, the next step is to observe *exactly*. We should always try to judge the situation without letting our personal ideas get in the way.
Besides biases and quick mental rules that can mess things up, you also have to deal with “selective perception.” This means the brain always tends to focus on one thing and ignore everything else. This is very important so you don’t get overwhelmed by too much information all the time. But there is also a middle way.
To observe precisely and correctly, you need to train your attention and mindfulness. In science, there is the term “passive observer” – someone who stands outside the situation, doesn’t take sides, and tries to notice all details. You take on this role as Sherlock Holmes: Focus on what you want to observe, and stay as fair as possible. Different methods can help us with this.
A useful method is to observe as widely as possible. This means using all your senses to get a full picture of the situation. While purposely noticing smells and sounds might seem strange at first, such information could be very helpful with some practice – for example, the smell of gunpowder.
Another method is to observe what is *not* there. Here is an example that successfully combines both methods: In one case, Holmes is looking into a nighttime burglary. He notices that a typical sound for burglaries is missing: The homeowners’ dog had not barked. From this observation, Holmes concludes that the dog knew the burglar. This understanding then greatly narrows down the list of suspects.
The more often you practice being as fair, passive, and broad as possible in your observations, and also paying attention to things that are actually missing, the more valuable your conclusions will be. However, even the best observation is useless if it is not checked constantly. It is always possible that you made a thinking error or drew the wrong conclusions from some details – maybe the dog was drugged.
Blink 8 – Solving problems needs creativity.
After you have observed a situation or a fact as closely as possible, it is time to look for an explanation or a solution. Here, you should let your creativity and imagination run free.
Imagination actually works just like the game Scrabble: All the details and impressions of a problem are thrown into a bag and then shaken well. If you then pull out two pieces with your eyes closed, creativity is needed: How do these single pieces fit together? What could they mean together?
Making and studying such random connections can greatly help solve problems. You should reach into the bag often and try many combinations to find all sorts of different solutions for the problem. The biggest challenge here is to connect single parts in a way that something completely new comes out. Because if the solution were obvious, you wouldn’t need to look for it.
A good example of this kind of creativity is Dick Fosbury. He invented a completely new high jump technique called the “flop.” He took the details – for example, a certain height, his body’s abilities, and the rules of the competitions – and noticed what was not yet regulated: the direction of the jump. So, he simply tried jumping backward. This technique worked so well that it became the standard in all high jump competitions.
Also, stepping back and creating some distance from the problem can sometimes help. So, don’t get stuck on solving the problem immediately. Instead, distract yourself with a walk, a short meditation, or another enjoyable activity. Afterwards, it will be much easier for you to think about the matter again with a fresh and open mind, and to come up with creative solutions.
Blink 9 – Unlikely does not mean impossible.
Now, it’s about finding out which of all the possible solutions you thought of is the right one. The best way to do this is by deduction, which means drawing conclusions from all known facts.
To do this, go through all the possibilities again and try to find evidence for or against them. You should find out which choice works best. The challenge, however, is to treat unusual ideas for solutions equally and not to dismiss them as nonsense.
You should always keep your inner Watson in check. He usually tends toward the most obvious answer and likes to ignore all other possibilities. He looks for evidence for solutions he already knows. A surprising solution will always remain hidden from him because he simply isn’t looking for it.
There is a famous study that proves this effect. Different people were asked to guess the speed of cars in a video of a car crash. All people saw the same video. But some were asked how fast the cars “smashed into each other,” and others were asked how fast the cars were “when they touched.” The people whose question included “smashed into each other” guessed the speed was much faster than the others. So, if we already think we know that something happens in a certain way – fast or slow in this case – our mind only looks for proof that supports it.
For example, when Holmes once wanted to find out how a burglar got into a house, there were these options: through the door, a window, the chimney, or a hole in the roof. Even though a hole in the roof is very unlikely, it is not impossible. Just like Holmes, you should always consider such a symbolic “hole in the roof” in your thinking.
To practice this, it helps to set aside your first, quick answer again and again, and think about other possible options.
Blink 10 – Don’t be fooled by being overconfident.
Now you know all the methods Sherlock Holmes uses to combine facts sharply and make brilliant conclusions. Lastly, you just need to make his way of thinking a habit. Sherlock Holmes should be your new autopilot.
At first, it will be hard to think and combine things like Holmes every time. But the more you practice, the easier it will become. It is worth continuing, because analytical thinkers have many advantages in life: Making decisions happens faster and better, and you see the world more clearly.
But even if you have gotten used to Holmes’s thinking strategy, there is still one big challenge: self-confidence. As soon as we are sure that we are doing everything right, mistakes will surely creep back in. For example, studies show that experienced stock traders often make riskier and wrong decisions than careful beginners in that field.
No matter how careful you are, this problem will eventually appear. Even Sherlock Holmes himself sometimes struggles with it. However, don’t be upset if you sometimes fall back into the Watson autopilot. Instead, see every mistake as a chance to learn something new.
To stay true to your inner detective, it often helps to tell another person about your thinking process. Holmes often explains to Watson what he is thinking and how he comes to his conclusions. This helps him think about his ideas, and Watson often has important comments.
So, Sherlock Holmes is not a natural genius. His genius comes from his logic and his willingness to learn from his mistakes.
Summary
The main idea of these Blinks is:
Sherlock Holmes is a clever thinker, and we can all learn to connect ideas as smartly as he does. To do this, we need to avoid common thinking traps. We must look at situations from a distance, observe carefully, and come up with creative solutions. With enough practice, anyone can use these smart thinking methods to make better decisions and solve hard problems.
What you can do:
Believe in the unlikely.
If there are many possible solutions to a problem, also pay attention to the unlikely ones. They are often correct.
Think creatively.
Take all the facts and details you know, put them in a mental bag, and shake them well. This will lead you to exciting and creative ideas!
Take a break before you start.
When you face a problem, don’t rush into it. Instead, take a step back before you start the real thinking work.
Make connections.
Create links using all your senses. This helps you remember information very well.
Do you have feedback?
We are keen to hear what you think of our Blinks! Just send an email to [email protected] with the title of this book as the subject, and share your thoughts with us.
Source: https://www.blinkist.com/https://www.blinkist.com/de/books/die-kunst-des-logischen-denkens-de