How to think like Sherlock Holmes, according to neuroscience and psychology

Here's exactly how to think like Sherlock Holmes - and it's backed by science.

No fictional character is more renowned for observation than Sherlock Holmes. In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s excellent short stories and novels, Holmes reliably surprises the reader by making extraordinary, acute observations of things that, later on, you realize were hidden in plain sight. 

Science writer and psychologist Maria Konnikova breaks down Holmesian thought in her 2013 book, Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. She argues that much of the great detective’s effectiveness comes from his mastery of mindfulness. 

“I consider that a man’s brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose,” Sherlock Holmes said.

Konnikova highlights this concept of the brain attic. To optimize observation, we must filter the things we focus on. The details we choose to take in are the things that color our perception. The things we fail to notice are limitations we impose upon ourselves, but that isn’t always a bad thing.

In ignoring certain details, Konnikova says, we can better perceive what we’re actually looking for. Intentionality matters, and this can act like a magnet for relevant observations. That’s mindfulness — picking what exactly we store in our brain attic.

Observation with a capital O...does entail more than, well, observation (the lowercase kind). It’s not just about the passive process of letting objects enter into your visual field. It is about knowing what and how to observe and directing your attention accordingly: what details do you focus on? What details do you omit? And how do you take in and capture those details that you do choose to zoom in on? 

In other words, how do you maximize your brain attic’s potential? You don’t just throw any old detail up there, if you remember Holmes’s early admonitions; you want to keep it as clean as possible.

Being selective with what you choose to focus on can build mindfulness, like a muscle reacting to weightlifting. Selective attention makes us better at paying attention. It can be developed with habit, and it becomes sharper with training.

"Our intuition is shaped by context, and that context is deeply informed by the world we live in,” writes Konnikova. She continues: 

[Intuition] can thus serve as a blinder — or blind spot — of sorts…With mindfulness, however, we can strive to find a balance between fact-checking our intuitions and remaining open-minded. We can then make our best judgments, with the information we have and no more, but with, as well, the understanding that time may change the shape and color of that information.

Practicing mindfulness comes, in part, from being fully engaged, says Konnikova. It allows us to persist longer than usual, which then allows us to become more likely to complete or solve something. Psychologist Tory Higgins, in his book Focus, described this as “flow” — a presence of mind that makes us better at what we’re doing. It is the result of being an active participant in what’s right in front of you. 

That’s what Sherlock Holmes does better than anyone else. At any moment, he is so present that nothing escapes his faculties. Every sense is heightened. Konnikova expands further: 

[W]e derive actual, measurable hedonic value from the strength of our active involvement in and attention to an activity, even if the activity is as boring as sorting through stacks of mail. If we have a reason to do it, a reason that engages us and makes us involved, we will both do it better and feel happier as a result.

Konnikova points out that in Doyle’s story, The Adventure of the Bruce-Partington Plans, Holmes’ partner-in-crime John Watson describes the detective’s ability to change gears and refocus.

Doyle writes from the first-person perspective of Watson: 

One of the most remarkable characteristics of Sherlock Holmes was his power of throwing his brain out of action and switching all his thoughts on to lighter things whenever he had convinced himself that he could no longer work to advantage.

Keeping our brain attics tidy comes from practicing clear thinking — and that comes from mindfulness. Today we have apps like Headspace and Ten Percent Happier that are supposed to help us be more present, more mindful. But I don’t recall reading in Doyle’s stories any instances of Holmes meditating. Instead, he often spent time away from work doing mindful practices — “lighter things,” as Watson says. 

In forcing yourself to step back from a project, especially one that you are fully engaged in, insights or intuitions can come to you rather than vice versa. Psychologist Yaacov Trope called this psychological distance, and said it was one of the most important lengths one could go to improve decision-making and critical thinking — no wonder Sherlock Holmes partook in this. 

Mindfulness is not some hokey psychology technique. Sherlock Holmes focused his attention on specific things, removed himself from projects when necessary, and proved his mastery of selective attention time and time again.