I’m sure it happens to you. As much as you try to guess in advance all the problems you may find during development, you’ll end up fighting some problem for hours. You think it over and over again. And again. A solution is nowhere to be found.

It happened to me several (too many) times. Most of the time, after much fight, I end up reaching a solution. But on a few occasions, something startling happened: After quitting, usually because time ran out that day, I return the other day and find a solution in five minutes or less! And a simple one. “So easy!… Why didn’t I think of that yesterday????”

I start to wonder how much time I wasted by not quitting to fight the problem.

So from now on I decided to have a new approach to problem-solving: If it starts to take too long to solve, I move on to something else, and leave it for tomorrow or the other day. And I advise you to do the same. You’ll end up saving time.

The reason for this quite surprising effect lies on the fact that when we have a problem, we set a series of reasoning “paths” that, unfortunately, lead us to the same “solution candidates” over and over again. At a certain point, we cannot deviate from those paths anymore. We become stuck, or run in circles.

If we leave the problem behind for some time, we have the chance to rebuild those reasoning paths again, hopefully in new directions. But don’t leave it for too long. That’s because there is always important information you must retain to be able to solve the problem. The longer you leave it, the harder it gets to get started again.

Knowing when to quit helps you save time solving problems. Think about it.