The Inventor's Inner Workshop

Tinkering on the Bench

Look at the object on your workbench. This feeling, this situation. You have been holding it in only one way for so long. Now, we will begin to tinker. First, let’s just walk around it. Mentally, rotate it in space. See it from the back. What does it look like from underneath? From above? We get so used to our own fixed perspective, we forget there are other angles. Most problems are not solid walls; they are complex shapes with hidden sides. Now, pick up a tool. The first tool is called “Reframing.” It’s a simple lens. Look through it and ask: What is the one assumption I am making here that is keeping this problem stuck? Is there another way to see this? Not a better way, not a more positive way, just… another way. If a friend had this exact problem, what story would they tell about it? Try that story on for a moment. See how it feels. Put down the lens. Let’s try another approach, inspired by the SCAMPER method used in creative thinking. It’s a series of questions to prompt new possibilities. You don’t have to answer them all, just see which one sparks something. Can you *substitute* a piece of this problem? Can you change one of your usual reactions? Can you *combine* it with something else? Could this challenge be joined with a strength you possess? Can you *adapt* it? What if you scaled it down by half? What would remain? Can you *put it to another use*? Is this challenge teaching you something unexpected? Is this friction polishing a part of you that needed to shine? And finally, the most powerful tool in the workshop: the permission to step away. The German chemist August Kekulé solved the puzzle of the benzene ring, a foundational discovery in chemistry, only after he stopped striving and fell into a dream of a snake swallowing its own tail. Sometimes, the greatest act of invention is incubation. Knowing when to let the subconscious mind do the work. So, for a moment, just turn from the bench. Look out the window of your workshop. Trust that the parts are rearranging themselves while you rest.