Holmes in Everyday Life (3)

Sherlockian Way of Thinking

4. A Thinking Notebook for Question Training

Thinking can be trained. The first step is a single, well-formed question. Below is a Sherlock-Holmes-style notebook you can keep daily or weekly. Whatever you write, the point is not to find “the right answer,” but to build a habit of asking.

A. Training 1 — One Holmesian Question a Day

Choose one question per day from the six methods of reasoning. Ask yourself in the morning, or summarize your day in the evening.

→ Pick one of the above and record 3–5 lines of reflection in your notebook.

B. Training 2 — The One-Sentence Daily Note

The simplest, most effective routine: each day, write one question and a short answer.

Format example

• Today’s question: “What emotion is shaping my judgment right now?”

My answer: “Anxiety—so I’m leaning toward overly cautious choices.”

—or—

• Today’s question: “Which possibility in my head is least realistic?”

My answer: “That ‘everyone will criticize me.’”

Tips

Feel free to create your own questions, or borrow from the examples above.

What matters is not a “polished sentence,” but a habit of thinking.

C. Training 3 — A Weekly Review Routine

Once a week, spend about 15 minutes tracing your stream of thought with the questions below.

→ Writing a short “thinking review journal” from these five will let you feel which questions moved you—and which you overlooked—over the past week.

D. Practical Sprint — Do One Thing Today

Open your notebook now.

Recall one event from today.

Throw one of the questions below at that event.

Pick-and-use question list

“What was the decisive cause of this?”

“Am I jumping to a conclusion anywhere?”

“Can I separate feeling from judgment right now?”

“What hypothesis best explains this situation?”

“If I could go back, what would I ask first?”

“Which option can I safely eliminate?”

Even a single line counts. If you used one question today, your training has already begun.

E. Wrap-Up — Reasoning at Your Fingertips

Logical thinking is not merely understood—it is used. That use begins not with grand analysis or philosophy, but with a single notebook, a single question, a single step of thought.

Sherlock Holmes was the one who kept asking, kept thinking, and refused to stop questioning. We, too, can make a prompt-without-a-prompt our daily habit and make thinking our own.

From here on, the prompt is no longer for AI; it becomes a prompt for yourself.

5. Conclusion: The First Step to Sherlockian Way of Thinking

We have learned Holmes’s methods of reasoning one by one, connected their structure to generative AI and prompt design, and finally extended them into everyday question tools.

Holmes’s brilliance was not a sudden flash, but the fruit of steady training: observing, asking, and linking clues. Such training is not reserved for the gifted; it is something any of us can practice, a little each day.

When you face an event, stand before a decision, or need to look inward, recall the six methods you learned in this book. Then take a small step by asking just one question:
“What truly makes sense among these options?”
“What clue gave rise to this feeling?”
“What interpretation best explains this situation?”

This habit of asking will become the strongest weapon of thought in an age of AI.

Holmes approached truth through evidence; we approach ourselves through questions. If AI has learned logic, then we must relearn how to think with it. May this book be your first step—and may that step make your life a little clearer and more steadfast.