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?