OK so you’ve tried focusing, you’ve tried not focusing, the problem’s still there. It happens – if this was easy, it wouldn’t be a problem in the first place. So what next?

Well, the sky’s the limit. You can try anything next. Just one rule: it has to be something you haven’t tried before. By definition, the things you tried before didn’t work or you wouldn’t still be looking for answers. So move on, pick something different to maximise the chance of arriving somewhere new.

You’re aiming to activate your creative mind so you can bring it to bear on this problem. So maybe do something creative. Draw your problem. No, I don’t know what it looks like either, but that’s not important. Just draw it anyway – it’s bound to look different from before and that’s what we’re after. Plus, it’s looking different with your creative head on, so that has to be good. Mind you, if drawing your problems gets to be habit, there’s a danger it could become a rut, and we don’t like those. So if it doesn’t work, how about singing the problem instead? You can compose your own melody or use an existing one, it’s up to you.

Of course it’s important to keep surprising yourself by forcing your mind to approach things in new ways. So make sure you use a variety of techniques depending on the nature of the problem, your mood, what you tried last time, whether you toss heads or tails.

A friend of mine lives opposite a park and likes to work through tricky problems by walking around the park while talking them out with himself. I’ve seen him marching round, lost in his thoughts, gesticulating wildly (while his teenage kids cower behind the curtains desperately hoping no one thinks he’s with them). Talking a problem through out loud can be very effective – doing it in a public space is optional. Apart from anything else it slows your mind down to talking speed which can be a helpful change.

You can argue with yourself too. Play devil’s advocate and try to persuade yourself to adopt different options. It’s not that you want to follow those routes necessarily – you might talk yourself round of course – it’s that you’ll have to reframe your view of the problem and look at it from different angles.

Mind mapping is another approach that helps ring the changes with some problems. It’s especially good for the ones where you don’t know how or where to start. Mind mapping is brilliant for just starting anywhere at random, and again helps you to focus visually and conceptually on the problem.