“Invert, Always Invert”
When faced with life’s complexities, have you ever tried “inverting them”?
The famous German mathematician Carl Gustav Jacob Jacobi often used the principle "Invert, always invert," suggesting that many challenges are best understood when approached from the opposite direction. Originally a mathematical concept, it can be applied to everyday life, too.
Consider a scenario where you're trying to enhance productivity at work. Rather than trying to find out new ways to improve your efficiency, think instead of ways that would make you less productive. Things like “multi-tasking several things at once,” “taking numerous ‘small’ breaks to check social media,” or “checking emails as soon as the inbox notification appears” might come to mind. By eliminating these behaviors, you're likely to see an improvement in your productivity.
This concept is more powerful than it seems.
When you ask yourself, “How to become more productive?” you may not know the answer immediately. However, if you reframe the question to, “How to become less productive?” you likely will come up with numerous ideas that hinder your productivity. Recognizing—and cease doing—these can prompt immediate action much faster.
This inversion method applies beyond small-scale personal improvements to larger life decisions.
For example: imagine you are offered a new job. On the surface, it looks like your dream job. The pay is great, the firm has a stellar reputation, and it involves a lot of business-class travel to exotic locations at five-star hotels. And when you accept the role, you are happy for a while. Then, after some time, you realize your new job entails a lot of aspects you don’t want in a job: most days spent behind a screen, the absence of work-life balance, and a work culture divorced from your values.
Had you approached this situation from the opposite direction—focusing just as much on your "don't wants" as your "wants"—you would have realized that this "dream job" did not, in fact, align with what you were truly looking for, possibly sparing you from a decision you might later regret.
By consistently applying the “inversion” concept, you can identify blind spots in your reasoning, generate fresh insights and discover creative solutions to more complex problems.
Remember, aligning your life with your true needs and desires involve not only embracing positive actions but also avoiding negative ones. Thus, by being aware of both what to avoid and what to pursue, or what we do not want as well as what we do want, can we more effectively navigate toward our ultimate goal—a peace of mind.
