The trouble starts when something isn’t working as you expected. Perhaps the coffee machine isn’t pouring out a warm, delectable drink, or your internet connection is down. So, you have a problem.

When something doesn’t work as expected, the instinct is often to re-try it. Maybe you clicked the wrong button, or the coffee machine didn’t understand your intentions. Then, you repeat the same action—perhaps with more intensity. This is stupid. How could it not work? It was just working five minutes ago! “Honey! You saw it working, right? Right? Right?” And then: “God, no. I can’t believe we paid for this.”

There’s a shortcut to resolving such problems but it’s not easy.

  1. Don’t try the same thing twice.
  2. Write down what you did (so you can follow the first rule).
  3. Don’t start at the dependencies of your problem and instead work “out”, instead of “in.”

Take the example of a faucet that’s not working. Don’t check the main water line first. That would be starting from the outside in. The likelier culprit is the faucet itself. So examine it. If that doesn’t resolve the issue, move to its dependencies, and so on.

This method is a proven way to debug issues reliably and quickly. It’s not easy and especially for clever people, too simple. But it works.