When I'm new to something and get that feeling of having hit a barrier, I try to remember to "go broad before you go deep". It's too easy to feel the tail of t

When I'm new to something and get that feeling of having hit a barrier, I try to remember to "go broad before you go deep". It's too easy to feel the tail of the elephant, think it's a snake, and then go off based on that assumption and waste enormous time. You have to avoid doing that. Make yourself consider assumptions before you work form them. One way to do this is to force yourself to write out a list of ten strategies for helping to solve whatever problem you're stuck on. The ten-ways works for most things in life. Five isn't enough - you have to force yourself to really think.