In my chess class, the teacher gave us a problem to solve, as he always gives us. But this time I solved the puzzle more easily and much faster than I am used to solving such a problem.
How did I do that?
I have noticed that usually, when I am dealing with such a problem, I am not entirely focused on solving the problem. When I say I "think" about the problem, I must admit that at best 30% of my brain is "floating", 30% is preoccupied with questions that have only an indirect connection to the problem, for example: "Will I be able to solve the teacher's puzzle this time? And if so, will I be the first of the class to succeed in this? 20% are busy with the usual thoughts that bother me about matters that have nothing to do with chess. And only 20% is busy with the task I wanted to perform which is to solve the problem by calculating variants: "If I put my knight here and give a chess, the opponent can make A B or C. In case A, I will make the next move to which he can respond by C or D, In case B he can etc.
What I wanted was for 100% of my brain to be busy calculating variants. And so, I said to the teacher: "I will think out loud: If I put my knight here and give a chess..." I think this is the way of thinking of strong players. Of course, they do not analyze the position in front of the opponent out loud, but have adapted to the habit of thinking about the solution to the problem before them and only about it.
The following picture illustrates well what I just said. (GM = Grand Master of Chess, NEPO = One of the candidates to the world title, MAGNUS = Best candidate to the world title, CARLSEN = World Champion)
This way of expressing your thoughts out loud (at first at least, in the training phase) to force yourself to devote 100% of your thought to solving the problem works not only for chess, but for virtually everything. In the attached picture is the following sentence:
And indeed, in my blog I was able to better deal with problems in life by writing them down, instead of "thinking" about them inefficiently as I described earlier the way I would deal with chess problems.
Try it too, it works!