Your brain has two distinct problem-solving modes.
I tell my founder clients to leave critical problems unsolved.
Deliberately.
Here's why:
Your brain has two distinct problem-solving modes.
Focused mode: where you actively tackle issues head-on.
Diffuse mode: where connections form in the background while you're doing something else.
Most founders live exclusively in focused mode.
Always completing.
Always closing loops.
Always exhausting their cognitive resources.
The neuroscience is clear:
Research shows our most valuable insights happen during diffuse mode thinking.
But here's what no one tells you about founder psychology:
The more critical the problem, the harder it is to step away.
The more urgent the timeline, the more you need to.
What I teach instead is strategic incompleteness:
1. Start important work
↳ Gather information
↳ Define the problem clearly
↳ Identify key constraints
2. Then deliberately walk away
↳ Before reaching resolution
↳ When you feel momentum
↳ Right at the edge of breakthrough
3. Engage in something completely different
↳ Physical activity (I use running)
↳ Creative tasks (sketching works well)
↳ Mundane activities (driving, showering)
4. Return with fresh perspective
↳ Solutions appear seemingly from nowhere
↳ Connections form between disparate ideas
↳ Breakthrough thinking emerges naturally
A Series B founder I worked with was stuck on a critical pricing strategy for weeks. His team was frustrated. Their runway was shortening. The pressure was suffocating.
After implementing strategic incompleteness, the solution came to him while walking his dog.
Not random luck.
Cognitive science.
Strategic pause.
The freedom you're searching for isn't in working harder.
It's in trusting your brain's natural problem-solving architecture.
Your team doesn't need you to have all the answers immediately.
They need you to have the right answers eventually.
What critical problem could you deliberately leave unfinished today, allowing your brain to work its background magic?
