Quick Solve: What’s wrong?
Think of this box as the place for your complaint about what you want fixed. Be sure that anybody who reads your complaint can tell what is wrong. If you can’t explain the complaint to other people, some of your brain modules can't understand it either.
Look over your complaint for value terms like bad, annoying, unreasonable. Value terms say how you feel. They don't help your language channel figure out what to do about it. They are good for complaining, but not for fixing.
Lily Tomlin: I think we developed language
because of our deep need to complain.
Concretize the value terms. Write what happens so that anybody would know what to look for. You may find that concretizing is difficult. Be glad. You have located one of the obstacles on your road to the solution. You needed to understand the problem better. And you will understand it better when you finish concretizing. Writing about problems does not just fill paper.
Nobody does anything in the abstract.
Good for starting any project
Glossary: Value terms
The deer-in-headlight model for problem solving
Strengths for the Quick Solve
Logical
Writer, Good
Concretize. Use words that say what you would see, hear, or handle.