It’s Elementary. Or Is It? – Think like Sherlock Holmes

So apart from being a graphic designer with a keen interest in blackletter typography and decadent design, I also like to read and watch detective stories and crime fiction. Investigators spend much of their time thinking and hypothesising on what triggered the crime and who was the culprit based on the evidence collected and looking for connections and patterns to come up with a conclusion. Out of all the characters in the detective and crime fiction genre, the most popular is undoubtedly Sherlock Holmes. The character has been around for over a century and is still popular till this very day, and one of his main characteristics that stood out is ‘method of deduction’ in solving crimes.

Although as designers will not be asked to solve crimes, the thinking models used in that field – which are indeed in line with the ones in Holmes’s stories – are worth noting, as the same methods can be applied when tackling a design challenge. Maria Konnikova wrote a book discussing this thinking method. In Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes, she take a deep look at Holmes’s methodology and how to develop the same habits of the mind that will allow us to engage with the world in a mindful manner.

Mindfulness

The first step to this thinking method is to be mindful. Mindfulness is not a new concept. To some is comes naturally, some require practice. Psychologist William James says, ‘the faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will. … An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence.’ This is what mindfulness is all about. Moreover, Ellen Langer, a psychology professor, believes that mindfulness helps to better our sense of judgement, character and will power. When adopting a meditation-like form of thinking, which makes up a big part in practicing mindfulness, can shift front brain activity towards a pattern linked to more positive and systematic emotional states, helping us become for insightful, creative and productive. With that said we have to keep in mind that we must engage with our surroundings. We should move away from passive absorption to active awareness and processing of information.

Further to the above, Erika Carlson, a PhD candidate at Washington University, she describes mindfulness as “paying attention to one’s current experience in a nonevaluative way”. In return, this will provide a useful means for acquiring self-knowledge. She continues by saying that “it involves noticing thoughts and emotions as they arise without elaboration and rumination”.

Engagement

Being engaged with our surroundings it to pay attention to what is going on in our surroundings. Children are the best at being aware of their surroundings. They absorb and process information much faster than adults. Everything is still ‘new’ , therefore they will engage with it, learn about what it is and store the new information for any possible use in the future. As we grow older, we are faced with responsibilities and demands that we need to attend to, hence distracting us from what is going on in the present. In her book, Konnikova also writes that ‘our brain is not meant for multitasking. We divert our attention to multiple things at once, resulting in not absorbing anything.

On a different note, Konnikova also points out that attention is a limited resource. Paying too much attention on one thing will result in neglecting other things. We should not succumb to the trap of Attentional Blindness.

Inquisitiveness and Skepticism

One tip to stay sharp between our ears is brain training. One of Holmes’s thinking characteristics is in fact he never took anything at face-value. I looked at everything with a healthy dose skepticism and inquisitiveness. It is quite easy to make assumptions based on first impressions, and even if we are given a differing and more thorough explanation afterwards, we tend to stick to our initial views.

Konnikova also refers to Kahneman’s two systems of knowledge. She goes on to comparing System 1 and System 2 to Watson and Holmes respectively. System Watson is the intuitive system, whereas System Holmes is the rational system. The idea behind this thinking model is to move from System Watson to System Holmes in our way of thinking, and this requires mindfulness as well as motivation and practice. It is the attentiveness and sense of being in the present is crucial to engage actively in what is going on around us.

The Brain Attic

In one of the stories, Holmes compares the brain to an attic: “a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose.” He continues to Watson by making a comparison of two ‘brain attics’, that of a fool and that of a skillful workman. The fool’s brain attic would hoard in anything that comes to hand, resulting in running out of space for items that he would really need, whereas the workman is careful what to store and what to discard, keeping his brain attic up-to-date and in order. Over the years, the analogy described above, turns out to be accurate. Various psychologists and academics who studied how memories are processed in the brain came up to conclusions that are similar to the above analogy.

Attics are made up of two components, which are:

• Structure: It is important that the knowledge we cultivate in our brain is not in isolation, or in bits and pieces, but rather a piece of a larger puzzle, or a multipurpose tool, that we can make use of accordingly.
• Contents: The knowledge that we choose to store should come from different fields of expertise. That way we can approach a problem from different perspective and come up with more than one solution to it. Should we stick to one area, or one thinking model, we will be stuck in a loop and it can have a toll in how we view the world.

Observation with a Capital ‘O’

“Powers of observation can be developed by cultivating the habit of watching things with an active, enquiring mind. It is no exaggeration to say that well-developed habits of observation are more important in research that large accumulations of academic learning” – W.I.B. Beveridge

Observation, in this case, is not the mere act of looking around us, but rather looking around with thought and continuously asking ourselves ‘what and ‘why’. It is about knowing what is worth absorbing and what is not. As mentioned in the previous section, we should choose how to furnish our brain attic. Choosing wisely is to be selective with the information presented around you. It means that you look at what you see knowing that what you are noting and how you note it will form part of possible deductions you might make. In this case, observation is looking at things as parts of something bigger, like links in a chain or a detail in a large picture.

In his book, The Art of Scientific Investigation, W.I.B. Beveridge argues that training in observation takes time and patience, just like any other activity. In the beginning, one would do things consciously and with effort, however, as time goes by, these efforts will turn to habit and observation will become a skill. In addition to this, he mentions also that good background knowledge of the subject in question helps greatly, for that way it would be easier to identify anything that is out of the ordinary.

Taking a Step Back

Lastly, it is sometimes important to take a step back and look at the whole picture. In The Adventure of Bruce-Partington Plans, Watson observes how Holmes was remarkably capable of diverting his train of thought to something completely unrelated to the case whenever he is stuck in his investigation. Taking a step back is equally important as the points mentioned above. This is because it helps imagination and counters initial short-term emotions and impulsive decisions.

Forcing yourself to take a step back can be tricky. In the creative industry, it could be because of a tight deadline or a demanding client. However, looking at a problem with fresh eyes can be beneficial in producing a better end result. Even if it may sound counterintuitive. Clear rational thinking is not automatic. In fact it can be said that the most powerful mind is the Quiet Mind.

Holmes’s Thinking Method checklist

According to various sources, to start thinking like an investigator such as Sherlock Holmes, you should:

• Examine everything with healthy skepticism
• Work to overcome your biases
• Observe all first impression closely
• Be inclusive
• Be more engaged
• Step back every now and then
• Continues educating yourself to cultivate a braod knowledge base
• Keep a diary (or sketchbook in case of designers)

To sum everything up, to adopt Holmes’s way of thinking, that of combining the perceptive and the cognitive mind, we need mindfulness, motivation and a healthy dose of imagination. We need to think ahead, clarify the end point, be prepared for various options and develop an effective distancing device should it be required.