Legendary sleuth Sherlock Holmes captures generation after generation with his ability to unravel even the most complex mysteries. While Sherlock uses facts and logic to solve his cases, the key to his sleuthing abilities is his power of intuition. Like Sherlock, you can use your intuition to be a sleuth in your everyday life. Developing the Sherlock Holmes intuition will help you make better life decisions, particularly when it comes to dealing with other people.
1. Practice mindfulness.
Mindfulness is the art of being present in the moment. To be mindful, you will need to focus on what’s happening around you, without giving into the temptation to distract yourself or multitask. If you want to have intuition like Sherlock Holmes, you need to optimize your thinking by practicing mindfulness.
Focus on your breathing. Start by noticing when you breathe in and when you breathe out. You can even try an app to help you with your breathing, such as Breathe or Pacifica.
Pay attention to what you’re doing, even your daily routine. Notice the “crack” of the egg shell breaking, taste the mint of your toothpaste, smell the rain as you walk to your car, feel the smoothness of your steering wheel, and see the leaves swirling across the parking lot. Immerse yourself in the moment. When your mind wanders, bring it back to the present.
2. Sharpen your senses
Your five senses help you process the world around you, so you want them to be working at their best. Like any other skill, practice using your senses of sight, hearing, taste, touch, and smell so that you can use them to process the world around you. Using your senses, you can pick up clues to enhance your intuition just like Sherlock Holmes.
Sharpen your hearing by listening to instrumental music on a low volume. Try to pick out the different sounds and pinpoint the different instruments.
Improve your sense of smell by closing your eyes and focusing on a smell. Add to your practice by choosing smells to focus on, such as coffee or essential oils.
Work on your sense of taste by eating pure, whole foods, concentrating on the flavor of the food.
Enhance your sense of sight by adding vitamins to your diet, taking screen breaks, and getting natural light. You can also try eye exercises, such as rolling your eyes around and focusing on an object.
Work on your sense of touch by making a point to describe the texture of objects you come into contact with. Compare and contrast different textures.
3. Examine the world around you
Pick up your metaphorical magnifying glass and take a scientific stance toward your everyday life. Take in the sights, smells, sounds, and textures of your workplace or school. Keep track of who you see gathering around the water fountain, and try to predict who will take the last donut. By examining your world, you develop your skills of observation.[5]
Start by gathering information about the environment and people you encounter every day. Be a passive observer. Try to make small predictions about what will happen, such as who will volunteer to speak when the group is asked a question. Confirm your predictions with evidence.
4. Watch people
Spend time watching people so that you can become practiced in noticing someone’s mannerisms, habits, and tics. Choose a location like a park bench or a table in a coffee shop. Observe the people around you, cataloguing what you notice about each person.
Ask yourself questions such as, “What coffee will this person order?” or “Will this person act the same way with his friends as he was before they got here?”
Practice picking up on a person’s personality or mood.
5. Do puzzles
Expand your powers of observation using puzzles that ask you to spot differences between photos, find a hidden word, or solve a maze. You need a flexible mind to solve mysteries like Sherlock Holmes, and puzzles will get you one step closer to that goal.[8]
Pick up a Sudoku book, or print out free crossword puzzles from the internet.
Challenge yourself to complete a human maze. Go alone so that your friends won’t help you solve the puzzle.
6. Notice details
If you want to have good intuition, you need to train yourself to notice details. When Sherlock goes to a crime scene, he notices the minute details that no one else did. That’s because he’s practiced that skill. You can be just like Sherlock if you train yourself to notice details.
Test your powers of observation by listing what you can remember about the places you’ve been. For example, after you go to lunch at a local restaurant, list what you can remember about the place. What does the decor look like? What are the uniforms like? What dishes are on the menu? Next time you go to that restaurant, compare your list to see what you remembered correctly. Continue to test yourself to see how well you are noticing details.
7. Write it down
Keep a record of your observations and add to it daily. Don’t feel discouraged if you spend a lot of time in the same places because you can still challenge yourself to make new observations.
Push yourself to focus on particular details. For example, you could decide to look for people who are wearing a red shirt or people carrying an umbrella.
On your commute, try counting people who fit into a similar category. For example, if you ride the train you could count people playing on their cell phones.
At the doctor’s office, you could track how many people read the magazines the office provides versus how many people bring items with them.
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