[mortify]

While thinking is somewhat of a background process, our brains don't just solve the mysteries of the universe while we eat a ham sandwich. We tell our brains which problems are of high importance and it focuses on them. If you've ever laid down to go to sleep and told yourself to wake up at 6:30 and it worked, you've witnessed an obvious application of this.

The problem comes when we fail to point out the importance of a problem, or when we do so reflexively which means that we tell our brain that everything is important and it simply cannot process all of the requests.

Setting your thinking requests before doing a non-thinking activity is a good way to start. Think about the problem consciously and then specifically ask for an answer to a question. Then go do something physical or mechanical: take a walk, sleep, mow the lawn, watch a non-challenging movie, etc. Be prepared to accept whatever result you get. A common response is: non enough information, but it should point you toward what that additional info looks like.