one brain two minds - conscious and unconscious

do u have a problem making decisions? and even if u do make decisions, do u think yr decisions are good? or after the fact in-retrospect, u often felt that u could have make better ones?

no worries,.. here's probably the reason why. Though we have one brain only, it is extremely powerful. It has two minds! the conscious mind and the unconscious mind.

Everyone knows abt the conscious mind.. coz that's what we need in our every waking moment.. but there is this unconscious mind always working behind the scenes whether we're working, resting or sleeping.. it's like a CPU running in the foreground which churn out pictures on the monitor screen while another CPU is running in the background processing the complex algorithms.. passing the answers to the foreground CPU.. ;-)

So, with this understand, how can it help in making better decisions?

Answer: whenever u are given a problem, first find information that might give a solutions - that's using yr conscious mind. Spend enough time and consume enough info will do. Dont overload yr mind with too much info. Focus on the key stuff. Then move on to do other things unrelated to this problem. This will divert attention of the conscious mind from the problem and give the unconscious mind an opportunity to work on the problem in the background. During this time, yr unconscious mind will perform 'miracle'.. and somehow, more often than not, give u better decisions.

Dont believe? try it.. ;-)

[this writing is inspired by Feb'07 HBR article on "When to sleep on it"]