"Have you ever had a facepalm moment when you're troubleshooting a problem, and suddenly a cause or solution you'd overlooked becomes obvious? You sheepishly realize you'd wasted time going down the wrong track. This happened to me recently. I was working on a coding project, and a small error was driving me batty. I kept asking an AI chatbot to fix my code, but none of the fixes solved it."
"1. We Blame a Recent Change Example: You've recently updated the operating system on your phone, and the whole UI is different. A favorite app starts running slowly and glitching. You assume the app glitch has been caused by the system update. When you eventually check a subreddit devoted to the app, you learn the glitches are unrelated and can be fixed another way. How to catch yourself: Consider questions that force observations over assumptions, like: What am I assuming vs. what have I actually observed?"
People sometimes waste large amounts of time by overlooking obvious causes and solutions. A common example is saving updated code without deploying it, causing tests to run the old version. Seven common cognitive blind spots produce predictable mistakes and repeated fruitless troubleshooting. Each blind spot pairs an example with diagnostic questions that favor observation over assumption. Asking what is actually observed, testing one variable at a time, and considering basic workarounds often reveals simple fixes. Recognizing these patterns helps diagnose root causes faster, avoid incorrect assumptions about recent changes, and reduce repeated effort.
Read at Psychology Today
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