The Superior Detective

Hard to put into words

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Work starts to get busy so I won't be posting anytime soon.

Stay curious!

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FRAMEWORK TO LEARN DEDUCTION

(or anything in life)

This framework was used to improve your business and I just tweaked it so it fits deduction, but really, you can apply to anything.

Improving deduction skills have 3 modes:

• Practicing daily

• Discovering new concepts

• Resting

1. Practicing daily

Doing daily practice is finishing a list of things that you know will help you improve or building good habits for deduction.

For example, last week I encouraged you to observe at least 5 things everyday for a week.

If you did everything without fail, you'll start to realize that you don't observe or think about deduction that often,

And that you started to observe things more even though not as much as you think Sherlock Holmes does.

But it's a habit that makes you improve and realize things about deduction.

I call this a check list.

Good check list creates good habits create positive changes.

2. Discovering new concepts

In contrast to mode 1 which is the bare minimum that you need to do to have deduction in your daily life.

This step is about thriving and improving.

If you find yourself with spare time, you need to use it on actions that will get you where you want to go.

Those actions and concepts might not be obvious, you might have to think for some time before you have an idea.

Think "hmm, I wonder if I can figure this out"

For example, last week I gave an example of me wonder if I can conclude if a person is right or left-handed based on the mirror placement.

From that single thought I came up with the whole idea about primary or secondary evidence.

3. Recovery

Your brain needs energy and to be clear to function,

Like your body needs energy to move.

You need rest so that your mind can do the first 2 tasks.

If you aren't doing any of these, you're not getting better.

Not to say that deduction should be your primary focus in life, but

If you don't see yourself improving deduction skills,

Then this might be the piece that you're missing.

The more reps you do, the better you become.

Do it faster and do it more.

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RANDOM DISCOVERY

It was a normal day and I was practicing by observing a hand-held mirror.

The holding part was on the left, and I asked myself: "can this tell me what the handed-ness of this person is?".

Intuitively, this person would be left-handed as he held the mirror left hand, placed it down with left hand so the holding part is pointing left.

But what if his dominant hand is busy so that he holds the mirror with the other hand.

Same-thing can be seen with people opening the door with their non-dominant hand.

This can leads to things that combine with holding a mirror such as makeup, cutting his hair, etc.

What I wanted to say is, this piece of information doesn't tell you who this person is (1 step deduction), but rather a laying ground to get to the next step of deduction.

Let say if you find out this person this right-handed from other clues then combine with this piece, you can also confirm or suspect this person does makeup or cut his own hair, etc. and start looking for more evidences.

This makes me think about there's 2 types of objects:

1. One must be used with the dominant hand: pen, mouse, spoon. This requires a person to be focus, precise

2. One that can also be used with other hand: doorknob, cup of tea( with a spoon), etc. The action doesn't require the same amount of mental strength. Interchangeable which hand they use.

Random discoveries happen when you practice.

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When talking about deduction like Sherlock Holmes, you often think about flashes of information, connection to one another, which then leads to conclusions.

Really similar to warfare from a book that I'm reading, quote:

"He made no fixed plans beyond those intended for the initial clash; thereafter, he tailored his tactics to meet specific situations as they arose. He was lightning-fast decision maker, physically maintaining a pace that matched his active mentality. "

In both cases, we see the same thing: thinking on the spot.

In which, you'll need to:

1. Have good variety of knowledge that's helpful.

2. Observation of the current situation.

3. Connecting knowledge and situation.

4. Making decision/ deduction.

Knowing these facts, and based on what you want to learn, I think it is now easy to form up an exercise for yourself and practice. Improvement is just a matter of time and repetition now.

"The laws that govern circumstances are abolished by new circumstances"

P/s: I'll stop making daily short posts, and make 1 long post weekly, hopefully this will be more insightful and helpful for the deduction community.

P/s2: Let me know if the post doesn't make sense or not helpful.

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Just saw this brilliant way of checking for scammer.

The scammer was talking to this guy saying he lives about 160km away from Seattle (USA).

The guy immediately asked how long has he been living in the US.

The scammer said about 8 years.

....

Do you see the trick that he used?

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Tan to the elbow, and neck

Tan to the shoulder with lighter shade,

No tan in the body.

...

Tan from ankle to knees

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Only the outside half of the arm got tan

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Single step deduction is just looking for signs.

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Winning builds confidence.

Dissect your task into smaller portions,

Dominating it until you can't fail.

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Pick 2-3 things, pay attention and learn them.

Tan line, fur on clothes, etc.

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Is the garage door close or open more normal.

Or is it odd when your neighbor garage door is open when it's always close.

Do you ever notice such details ?

Such is the observational skill that you miss for deduction.

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A lot of the time when you can't make a deduction, it's usually because you don't have enough information.

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Deduction exercise:

Deduce what everybody in your household did throughout the day.

Might get hard bc you'll need questioning techniques and understand others' habits/ schedule.

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To turn your on your brain on command, you need to be able to deliberately turn it off sometimes.

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Story time.

My family usually finish working around 4pm then have dinner at 5:30pm.

Last week, I was in the shower at 4 after working and heard my dad urged me to hurry and we're heading out for dinner, which is a lot earlier than what it usually is.

I started deducing and for simplicity, there're 2 options:

1. We're going somewhere about an hour from us for dinner. Since we have close friends coming back from traveling, it makes sense that we would meet them half way home for dinner.

2. We skipped lunch that day and everyone was hungry so we went for dinner early.

The point of the story is that this deduction is so mundane that you guys probably don't even consider it deduction, Sherlock Holmes and you turn off your brain every day.

But this is a habit that separated me from everyone tried to do big deduction, failed, and gave up.

It's a muscle that you train, not you're born smart or not.

P/S: why we went early was because we needed to go to the stores since it would close by the time we finish dinner - a possibility that I did not even consider.

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I found myself getting ideas randomly throughout the day, while doing different activities.

If you're the same, note it down somewhere and spend time expand on that idea later.

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Stay daydreaming