3 tips to improve your critical thinking skills in the age of it

As in the previous two editions of the Future Survey of World Economic Forum works, analytical thinking is the main ability for employers in 2025. But do you know why? And what do you do to maintain and improve your analytical and critical thinking?

Maybe you think it’s just a matter of time before he thinks faster and better than you anyway? If so, it’s time to think again. Here are three tips on where to focus:

1. Focus on learning how to think

Analytical thinking is not the only thinking ability that employers consider to be essential competences for their work strength in 2025. Creative thinking is ranked fourth on the list of essential skills. And in number 12 we find thought -out systems.

But while it may be useful to determine and distinguish between different thinking skills when surveying what employers consider important, it does not improve your ability to think. In fact, it can weaken your ability to think about yourself if you focus too much on analytical, creative or other thinking aspects that are told to be important.

Already in 1952, the German philosopher Martin Heidegger said that “the most thoughtful in our thought is that we are still not thinking.” And according to a new study of the influence of that generating on critical thinking, the revolution of it has made it more difficult for us to think.

So, instead of focusing on the analytical or creative part of thinking, focus on the part of thinking. Once you are able to think, you will be able to think analytically, creatively, or whatever situation you find in the call.

2. Focus on what you should think

Thinking can sound like the light part, as something we all know how to do. But if thinking is easy, why did Heidegger say that we are still not thinking? And why do knowledge workers report a decrease in their cognitive effort when they use it?

In “What does it call to think about?” Lecture, Heidegger suggested that the reason we are still not thinking is that we are very busy with acting. “The prevailing man,” he said, “has acted for centuries and has thought very little.”

Heidegger was aware of the general opinion that “what is missing is action, it is not thought.” He even acknowledged that the state of the world seems to seek that “man must act without delay, rather than making speeches at international conferences and conventions and never get beyond the proposal of ideas and what it should be.”

But he also stressed that action without thinking was driven by the wrong things. “Many people today think that they are doing great honor for something looking interesting,” he said. However, ‘interesting’ is fast. “It is” the type of things that can be considered freely as indifferent at the next moment, and shifted from something else, which then bothers us as little as what went before. “

Despite the action of what is ‘interesting’, Heidegger said we must act “paying attention to what you have to think.” What it means this is simply: stay focused. Instead of being distracted by all the ‘interesting’ things that compete for your attention, focus on thinking and acting on ‘what calls to think’-ie problems that have long-term impact and cannot be resolved with one fast he quick.

3. Focus on whom you can practice thinking about

You can think about it like this: If the ‘interesting’ problem you are dealing with today is different from the ‘interesting’ problem you are dealing with yesterday, or the one you will deal with tomorrow, no need for you or someone else to think about it. May and will probably soon be resolved faster and better by him.

But if you are dealing with a problem that will not leave – not today, not tomorrow, maybe not ever – then you are dealing with something that ‘calls for thinking’. And if this is the case, you are relying on other people as thoughtful partners, not him.

Even Alan Turing, who laid the foundation for what we know today, made it clear that he was not created to think. In fact, he clearly said he believed the question ‘Can the cars think?’ It was “too meaningless to deserve the discussion”.

Thinking in the sense that Heidegger spoke is not a skill that can be repeated or taken from it. Why? Because he does not have the type of problems calling for thinking.

He does not care about what essential skills employers are looking for in 2025. He does not worry about knowledge workers reporting a decrease in their cognitive effort. And is not afraid not to be driven by the wrong things.

He does not need three tips on where to focus on getting the main essential ability in 2025 right because he does not pay a price if he mistakes it. We make you and I people who can’t do several things at the same time and therefore you have to choose HOWIN whatand with whose We spend our time and energy.

Making wrong choices can cost us expensive people in terms of lost job opportunities, personal development and ultimately quality of life. That is why we take care of the main essential skills and proper getting the right things. And that is why we can practice thinking only with other people who care and be afraid of the same things we do.

Critical thinking will always be your main ability

Defining and distinguishing between different thinking skills does not improve your ability to think. But the determination and the difference between what is and is not important does. In fact, the ability to see why something and someone is more important than something and someone else is what thinking has to do. And why critical thinking will always be your main ability, whether reflected in the ‘future of job surveys’ or not.

By focusing on HOW to think about, what have to think, and WHO You can practice thinking with you and the people around you spend your time and energy for the things that matter most. And this is exactly what employers, not to mention the world, need: people who help each other develop and act on their values.

Critical thinking is closely linked to the basic limitations of being human. So improving your critical thinking will not only help you be ‘interesting’ for employers in 2025, but will also help you stay human in age.