Rules of Thinking, The

RULE 89

Look for what comes next

One of the things that sets the best thinkers apart is the way they keep on thinking where other people stop. School teachers will tell you that this is a classic way to identify the brightest students, but you can learn to do it now even if you didn’t do it as a child.

Don’t just passively accept the information – or the ideas – you’re given. See them as a starting point and not an end point. Where can you go from here? If this is true, what else might also be true? Or indeed what else has to be true? Or what follows on? Look for deductions, extrapolations, correlations, inferences.

Obviously you can’t be doing this all the time. Or can you? Actually, we all do it in a small way and it’s just a matter of thinking ...