Why My Best Ideas Happen When I Stop Thinking

System 1 or System 2: How Do You Think?

At work, my boss often asks me how long it’ll take to finish a module. I work as an order filler in a warehouse, and after a few years, I’ve gotten good at micromanaging my tasks. I can usually predict, almost to the minute, how long it’ll take me to finish. If I say, “I’ll be done by 2 a.m.,” you can bet I’ll be on the radio announcing, “All done!” at exactly 2 a.m. It’s weirdly satisfying.

This habit of accurately predicting my task times got me thinking about how intuition works—and why I seem to perform better when I go with my gut.

I realized years ago that my intuition is pretty smart. This often leads me to making small decisions without overthinking. I actually get jealous of myself when I say something initially, then overthink it, change my mind, and realize I was right the first time. If I dwell on a problem too long, I usually mess it up. But when I trust my gut, I’m surprisingly accurate.

It’s almost like the universe (or some part of my subconscious) is feeding me the answer, but as soon as I overthink, I get in my own way. Maybe I let biases cloud my judgment, or maybe my critical thinking just isn’t as sharp as my instincts. I’m not sure.

Why Overthinking Fails

This week has been a lazy one for me. I spent most of it playing video games and only ten minutes fixing a bug on my website. I still wanted to write a blog post, but I couldn’t settle on a topic. Every idea I started felt boring, and I kept deleting drafts. Eventually, I blanked my mind and just started typing whatever came to me. That’s when it hit me: I perform better when I don’t think too much.

Difference Between System 1 and System 2

That realization led me to some research. Psychologists say there are two main ways of thinking, outlined by Daniel Kahneman in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow:

• System 1: Fast, intuitive, and automatic—your gut feeling.
• System 2: Slow, deliberate, and logical—the problem-solver.

When I engage System 2, I overthink, second-guess myself, and often abandon ideas entirely. That’s why so many drafts got deleted this week. My System 1, though, just spits out answers, and they’re usually right.

Take my "expert guestimating" habit. If someone asks me the time at work, I’ll guess before checking a clock, and I’m usually within five minutes. Or consider my task predictions at work—I can predict when I or my co-workers will finish something with scary accuracy if I make the guess within 10 seconds. If I take longer, I end up way off.

Why System 1 Works

System 1 taps into subconscious knowledge, experience, and pattern recognition. It filters out noise and focuses on what matters, which is why it’s so fast and accurate. System 2, meanwhile, processes every detail consciously, which slows it down and can lead to overanalyzing—or what they call "paralysis by analysis."

Trusting My Gut

I’ve realized this applies to my writing too. If I try to map out a post ahead of time, I overthink every paragraph, wondering if it’s engaging enough or even worth posting. But when I blank my mind and start typing, the words flow naturally, and the end result feels more authentic.

So here I am, trusting my gut, writing a post about gut thinking. Turns out, instincts aren’t just for quick decisions—they might be the secret to creativity too. Now, if only System 2 would stop overanalyzing this post so I can hit publish.