It’s easy to equate understanding with creativity. We read Hemingway or stare at a Rothko and think “I could do that.” The better-executed a piece of art is, the more natural it seems. The best make it look easy.

As a trained musician, I can listen to a pop song and more or less understand it. I can grasp its structure, hear how the instruments work together, and write out the chords pretty accurately.

When attempting to solve a problem, we tend to try approaches that have worked for us in the past. We do this even when we know a better approach exists.

This is called the Einstellung effect, and it’s all around us. We all have favorite strategies that we deploy against a wide range of problems, even though the internet gives us easy access to many more sophisticated and effective strategies. It used to be time-consuming and expensive to discover a new way to approach a problem. Now it takes minutes and it’s free.

Intention isn’t enough.

Almost 20 years ago, psychologist Peter Gollwitzer showed us that when we’re serious about doing something, we’re more likely to follow through if we set an “action trigger” by deciding when and where we’ll execute the task.

• Don’t decide to “start working out next week.” Plan to spend 30 minutes on the treadmill directly after work on Monday.
• Don’t “work on studying more.” Shoehorn an extra hour in the library into your schedule three mornings a week after your biology class.
• Don’t “try to spend more time with your kids.” Make Friday nights into family movie night.

It’s true in so many areas of life: clarity pays off big time.

Why is it possible to be so productive on an airplane?

At 30,000 feet (which is where I’m writing this), we’ve got only a few choices. If we’ve got a laptop and a good book, we can work or read (both high-quality, productive options). Our non-productive options, though, are of poor quality. Read the seat-back magazine, watch an old Friends episode on in-flight TV, or look out the window. Our usual distractions are absent (or at least muted).

Jazz musicians often practice material in all twelve keys. Learn “All the Things You Are” in the key of Ab, then learn it in Eb, then Bb, and so on. All the way around the circle of fifths.

Learning to play a tune in every key brings great rewards: easy mastery of the material, fingers that know where to go before the brain catches up, and ears that hear every harmonic nuance. A tune learned this way becomes part of the player in a way she couldn’t have foreseen.