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HiVisVestNinja t1_j2dkmdy wrote

This actually works!

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I was trying to repair my oven lately, couldn't get the new heating element to mount correctly. Started shouting at the oven in general for being such an uncooperative box. It cowered in fear, and I immediately realised that my main problem is that I have a severe mental illness.

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dwolf555 t1_j2ejnyb wrote

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rubber_duck_debugging?wprov=sfti1

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-Bluekraken t1_j2ekau5 wrote

I was going to comment this

Context for who don't want to open the link:

In software engineering positions, it was common to give a rubber duck to juniors and tell them "if you get stuck, talk with the duck". To promote this same pro tip of talking your problems out loud

It's not that common nowadays, but is something every other "oldschooler" programmer knows about

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TheoR700 t1_j2f04eb wrote

I came here to post the same thing.

When I was in college getting my Computer Science degree, whenever I was stumped on a programming project, I would try to explain the problem to my wife, who had absolutely no idea what I was talking about. Sometimes I would even pull out a dry erase board to draw the problem for her. Every time, I would be in the middle of explaining it to her and have one of those eureka moments and run to code the solution that I just came up with in my head while explaining it.

I still do this to this day when working on a project for work as a software engineer. It happens less and less, but it still happens.

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Primary-Mulberry4309 t1_j2dqqgn wrote

I homeschool my kids and this is exactly what I tell them. Having trouble, explain it out loud to me and let's see if we can figure it out. Usually just by them slowing down and talking through it they're able to figure it out on their own. Verbal processing is so helpful for some people.

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savvybabyxox t1_j2ea8ds wrote

I write my problems out in my notes app on my phone and that helps too.

Or when I want to send an angry text to someone, I’ll write the message out in notes and then I never end up sending it as I feels good just writing it all out

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DanelleDee t1_j2fdr2k wrote

This works very well. I'm doing university online, which means I get textbooks, papers, and exams, and I have an email address for questions. About 75% of the time when I start typing out a question about a part of the textbook I can't understand (most of it is biology) I manage to answer the question while trying to articulate exactly what I didn't understand.

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nilogram OP t1_j2fdy4q wrote

Yea! I was going to add writing it out also helps a lot

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skunksmasher t1_j2fnrky wrote

What if your problem is talking to inanimate objects?

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keepthetips t1_j2dj5ny wrote

Hello and welcome to r/LifeProTips!

Please help us decide if this post is a good fit for the subreddit by up or downvoting this comment.

If you think that this is great advice to improve your life, please upvote. If you think this doesn't help you in any way, please downvote. If you don't care, leave it for the others to decide.

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Sparklesperson t1_j2elqls wrote

I often find that when I ask a question about a challenge I'm having, I often solve it before the other person can get back to me. I figured out that in articulating the issue, it's underlying parts, and what I have already done, is often enough for me to find the solution.

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marco_sikkens t1_j2ex46k wrote

In software development terminology we call this rubber duck debugging. Although i just use a colleague instead of a rubber duck

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