Although it focuses on scientific activities, I believe that this article presents an interesting “lifeart”, which can be re-used in all days various situations. When you are faced to a new intellectual or technical challenge, for which you have no idea to solve it, the best solution would be: immerge in the unknown with pragmatism & simplicity.

1st: propose naive approaches which will enrich successively your knowledge of the problem (through focusing specific aspects of the problem where you need to invest some effort).

2nd: solve your initial problem according to your new knowledge on it.

In some words: Naive approach allows you to solve very difficult problems.

I recommend you to read this pleasant short article (only one page)! You can download it here. Hope it will interest you!

[1] Martin A. Schwartz – The importance of stupidity in scientific research – Journal of Cell Science 121, 1771 (2008)

Mathias