Systematizing Curiosity with Curiosity-Based Thinking
Tame the chaos of your curiosity to make it your guide
Curiosity is fantastic; but it’s also chaotic. The chaos can give curiosity it’s umpf sometimes, but it can also limit its use. What if we can turn our raw curiosity into a smooth operator system we can rely on over and over to learn, accomplish, or pretty much do anything?
Curiosity-Based Thinking transforms innate wonder into focused, enjoyable actions for achieving valuable outcomes like innovative solutions or enhanced learning.
But what if does even more than that? What if Curiosity-Based Thinking can help you systematize your curiosity?
Time to nerd out on curiosity for a bit.
Think of systematized curiosity as the intentional organization of your natural sense of wonder and turning it into a structured, repeatable framework that guides you toward practical outcomes, like solving problems, learning new skills, or sparking innovation, all while making the journey enjoyable and rewarding.
Curiosity-Based Thinking helps systematize curiosity by offering a repeatable methodology that piques personal curiosity, fuels discovery, reframes understandings, and directs it all toward creating or doing something valuable.
Growing up in Union, Missouri, we were surrounded by creeks and rivers. They were our playgrounds and early curiosity factories. We’d catch crawdads, dig channels, and engineer our own bridges and dams. Those wild creeks and rivers were also full of raw energy flowing everywhere, sometimes rushing in directions we were directing it, but more often rushing every direction and carrying away down stream to who knows where… just like our curiosity.
But, what if you could build a series of channels, dams, and turbines to direct that river's power? That's systematized curiosity: it's like engineering your own, personal "what if?" spark into learning, innovation, and actions that solve the biggest problem you’re facing.
With Curiosity-Based Thinking, instead of randomly wondering about things (like why is the sky blue? or why is water wet?), you apply simple steps, starting with piquing your interest first before diving deeper into discovery, then reframing what you know to see fresh angles, and finally creating something tangible from it all.
Curiosity-Based Thinking is about amplifying your curiosity so you can tackle everyday challenges, from boring tasks at work to big life questions, with more focus, fun, and effectiveness.
So what can you do to create a more curious you?
How Curiosity-Based Thinking Can Systematize Your Curiosity
Déjà New: The Curiosity-Based Thinking process, Déjà New systematizes curiosity by reverse-engineering a familiar task or problem through futuristic "what if it didn't exist?" or “what if a solution existed?” questions to uncover infinite new perspectives and actionable insights.
Curiosity A-Z: The Curiosity A-Z Curiosity-Based Thinking activity systematizes curiosity by transforming curiosity from a spontaneous, unstructured impulse into a guided, repeatable framework that uses the alphabet as a sequential scaffold to explore any topic comprehensively, ensuring that wonder is channeled into organized insights, questions, and actions for deeper learning and problem-solving.
The Book of What If...?: the guided explorations in The Book of What If...?, where open-ended "what if" prompts and follow-up questions systematize curiosity to build critical thinking skills, turning hypothetical scenarios into practical learning and problem-solving tools.
Curiosity-Based Thinking's structured approach that starts with piquing curiosity (like through "what if" questions or Déjà New) recruits specific brain mechanisms to make discovery and reframing more effective, leading to enjoyable, lasting learning and creation of valuable outcomes as seen in the examples.
So, what if it’s time you recruit your curiosity to do more for you?
Follow along for more on curiosity and Curiosity-Based Thinking and reach out if you’re curious to learn more about how to Déjà New, Curiosity A-Z, or use other Curiosity-Based Thinking frameworks.
Stay curious!
Matt