The Problem Deconstruction Worksheet
Break any complex problem into what is true, what is assumed, and what you can test
The Problem Deconstruction Worksheet is a free companion tool for The First Principles Playbook. It walks you through the same reasoning process taught in the book — 8 steps from identifying the real problem to selecting your cheapest informative test.
Use it whenever you face a complex, ambiguous, or stuck problem — in product decisions, business strategy, career choices, or any situation where the standard answer feels constrained by unexamined assumptions.
The 8 Steps
- State the problem without embedding a solution — Write the need, not the fix
- List every assumption — Get them all on paper before judging
- Label each assumption — Known fact, inferred, or inherited convention?
- Record hard constraints — Only the genuinely immovable ones
- Rewrite the problem using only verified fundamentals — What opens up?
- Generate three materially different options — Don’t optimize one idea
- Select the cheapest informative test — Move from analysis to action
- Record what you learned — Decide your next move based on evidence
When to use it
- ✓ The problem is stuck — standard approaches aren’t working
- ✓ The stakes are high — the cost of a wrong answer is significant
- ✓ The situation is novel — no reliable precedent exists
- ✓ You suspect the solution is built on unexamined assumptions
- ✓ A team keeps optimizing a process that may not need to exist
Get the worksheet
Enter your email below and the worksheet lands in your inbox — usually within about 15 minutes — as a plain markdown file you can print, paste into your notes app, or share with your team. No purchase needed.
After that, a short series of practical emails arrives over the next week and a half — one worked example, one key distinction, one honest look at the biggest objection to first-principles thinking. Then roughly one article per week. Unsubscribe anytime; every email has a one-click link.
Want the full method?
The worksheet covers the core process. The book goes deeper — with 20+ case studies, 8 exercises, frameworks for overcoming cognitive biases, and guidance on when first-principles thinking is worth the time (and when it’s not).