Go to Bed

One of my own troubleshooting or programming rules is to go to bed. Over and over again, I have discovered that I will fail to solve a problem if I focus too stubbornly on it. If I go to bed, however, the answer is usually waiting for me as soon as I wake up or pick up the problem again.

I was reminded of this while reading the highly fascinating article, Adam Green: The Spectacular Thefts of Apollo Robbins, Pickpocket (linked from Schneier on Security: Apollo Robbins, Pickpocket).

Specifically:

“inattentional blindness,” the phenomenon of focussing so intently on a single task that one fails to notice things in plain sight.