Generative Prompts

Brainstorming Questions instead of Answers
 * Which questions, if answered, would make this problem much easier?
 * What kind of evidence would be relevant to someone making decisions about this?
 * What kind of clarifying questions would an expert ask if you were describing this problem to them?
 * Are there preexisting sets of questions/checklists for this problem domain?
 * Which tests do we have available and what kind of questions do they answer?
 * What questions could we ask clients/stakeholders?
 * What are some simple/bad ways to solve this problem and can they be improved?

Conversational Prompts
 * What part of this problem seems most relevant to you?
 * What part do you find yourself unusually attentive to?
 * How can we find out where our models of the problem overlap?
 * How can we find out where our models make different predictions? Can we bet?
 * Journalist questions: who, what, where, why, when, how.

Reframing the Problem
 * What metaphors does the problem description rely on? What if we used different ones?
 * What if we permuted some of the words in the problem description with a thesaurus?


 * What if the problem turned out to be easy?
 * What lucky fluke would lead to you getting what you want? Can we make any of those more likely?
 * How would you solve the problem with arbitrary power? What are the desiderata it would satisfy if there were no tradeoffs?
 * What situations does this remind me of?
 * What would someone awesome do to prepare for a serious effort at solving the problem?
 * Is there a smaller/toy version of the problem you can solve for practice?
 * Have you tried sharpening the problem without looking for a solution?
 * Have you tried granularizing more?
 * Have you tried dumping your thought cache and approaching the problem in open mode?
 * Have you tried filling your attention with the problem?
 * Have you tried propagating constraints from the object level?
 * Give 3 concrete examples, give 3 counter examples.
 * Map the idea space instead of trying to solve the problem.
 * Describe the problem instead of explaining it.
 * What do all my efforts to solve the problem so far have in common? What am I not changing enough?
 * Have you tried rubber ducking impressive people?
 * Have you tried actually trying to solve the problem?

Therapeutic/Affective Prompts
 * What if I woke up and the problem was solved? How would I know? What would be different?


 * What if it were happening to someone else?
 * What if I'm not responsible?
 * What if I took a step back from it?
 * Do I have any limiting beliefs around this problem?
 * Hopelessness: the problem is impossible
 * Helplessness: the problem is impossible for me in particular
 * Worthlessness: I don't deserve the problem being solved
 * How is that (problematic behavior in someone else) also true of me?
 * Is that belief true? How would I know if it wasn't?
 * Where did that belief come from?
 * Is that belief serving me?
 * Is this framing of the problem helping me find solutions?
 * What are different ways of framing this problem? (see above)
 * What is (this problem) really about?
 * How is maintaining this problem serving me?
 * How do I actually feel in the moment this problem arises?
 * What notes of discord arise when I say 'everything about X is going perfectly'?
 * Do I genuinely feel curious about the problem?