Steps To Critical Thinking

Used to solve complex or complicated problems, critical thinking is the ability to gather information, evaluate it, and come to a conclusion based on the evidence. No matter where you are in your career or in life, critical thinking is a critical skill to possess that will help you move forward. Improving critical thinking skills increases problem solving ability and speed, decision making ability, and provides a method for dealing with complex problems. Gaining and improving on the skill of critical thinking will help you to make better decisions as you will have better information on which to base your decisions. It also enables you to move from passive learning to active learning. Just like any other skill, there will be people who have a natural talent for critical thinking. Don’t let their natural ability dissuade you from improving your skills. Critical thinking is a process that includes several steps. Not every decision will need to go through this process. Some problems that you have to solve in your daily work life will be obvious or have obvious solutions, you just have to put in the work on those. Critical thinking steps is used for the ones that are not easy or obvious. They are for the problems and decisions that may not have a clear answer or may have multiple solutions that you need to filter to find the best one for your situation. There is rarely a cut and dry solution to a problem. Critical thinking is a skill set that you use to help determine not only the solutions but to find the one that works best for you in your situation whether that be code related, personal life, or coworkers and office politics. Once you’ve used these steps to solve a problem or make a decision then you’ll need to evaluate your solution. Ask yourself what did you learn from this and how can that help next time you have a similar problem or decision. The idea is to use the critical thinking that you’ve already done to help yourself beyond just this one issue and for future problems and decisions. Links Join Us On Patreon Level Up Financial Planning Donate to Beej’s Mission Fund Memo: Put “BJ Burns” in Memo Critical Thinking Skills