The 2 modes of thinking There are two types of thinking when it comes to thinking. They are essentially different to each other but work together helping us figure several different things out. The first one is the focused mode of thinking, wich is the one we use when approaching known-how-to-solve things, as solving math exercises or calculating more complex information. The other one, the diffuse mode of thinking, is used when we face certain situations for the first time and are not familiarized with the way to solve it. Therefore, as the patterns (or information) in our brains we need to use for us to home in on a solution are "widely distributed" throughout our brain, we need to let our thinking go several places there for the purpose of getting started on the right place (I may call it the right neural pattern). It seems that we are either in one mode of thinking or the other one at the same time, but surely we can turn from and to each one to get into a resolution. This way, for an unknown or though situation we can land into the right place using the diffuse mode and start to work more intently using the focused mode. Thank you!