The Method / The Formula
The tool
One formula for any problem.
Draw. Sense. Search. Redirect. Repeat.
Draw → Sense → Search → Redirect → Repeat
Your problem becomes a network; you find the empty edge and redirect the signal — a new path appears, with no end.
- 1DrawSee it as a network
- 2SenseWhich edge glows?
- 3SearchWhich edge is empty?
- 4RedirectEnergy in another direction
- 5RepeatThe network grows
The five steps
- Draw. Write down what belongs to your situation — things, people, feelings, processes. These are your entities (nodes). Connect what belongs together: those are the relations (edges). You invent nothing; you only make visible what is already there.
- Sense. Mark the active relation: what do you feel, think or do again and again right now? That is where all the energy sits. The very edge you are stuck on is also why you cannot see the others.
- Search. Ask: which node is missing? Which connection have you never activated? The six viewpoints help — the other person, time, the level, the outside, the unknown, distance. An empty edge is not a lack but your next path.
- Redirect. Do not fight the active edge — that only keeps it glowing. Deliberately steer the signal onto the empty edge: often into the opposite, into another direction, or into an entirely different network. Not more force — a different direction.
- Repeat. The empty edge becomes active, the old one becomes passive (it never fully disappears). New nodes appear, new questions arise. Your network has become a different one — and you begin again at 1. There is no end.
The formula as a picture
On the left, your network: the glowing edge is active, the habitual path runs on, passive. On the right lies an empty edge in another network — a path you have not taken yet. Taking the fourth step means redirecting the energy across the dotted line, over there.
Graph as text
- Your situation → Active edge (active)
- Active edge → Habitual path (passive)
- Your situation → Empty edge (empty)
- Empty edge → New path (empty)
- empty
- active
- passive
The heart of it: redirect the energy
The fourth step is the most important — and the least familiar. When something is stuck, our first reflex is to pour more force into the very edge that holds us. But the more energy flows onto the active relation, the brighter it glows. The answer is almost never to push harder, but to change direction.
Sometimes that means: into the opposite. Instead of forcing yourself calm, you steer the restlessness into movement. Instead of thinking against the fear, you give it one tiny, doable task. And sometimes it means: go into an entirely different network. The answer to a work question may lie in a conversation far from your field; the key to a quarrel in a memory that seems unrelated. Weak, distant ties often carry more that is new than the strong ones you are already stuck on.
Apply the formula to yourself
Take a situation that is on your mind right now and walk the formula through it — on paper or in your head:
- Which entities belong to it? Name five nodes — people, things, feelings, processes — and connect what belongs together.
- Which edge is active right now? What do you feel or do again and again?
- Which edge is empty? Which viewpoint have you not taken — the other person, time, the level, the outside, the unknown, distance?
- How do you redirect the energy? What would be the opposite of your reflex? Into which other network could you go?
- What changes once the empty edge becomes active? Which new question appears?
Common questions
Does this formula really work for any topic?
It is a lens, not a law of nature. But these same five steps sit inside every topic on this site — from procrastination to technical systems to the inner child. You only fill the nodes and edges with your own situation.
What does ‘redirect the energy’ mean concretely?
You do not fight what is holding you; you deliberately activate a connection that was empty. With procrastination that means: don't battle the escape, activate one tiny first step instead. Same energy, different direction.
Why should I go into another network?
Because the answer often is not where the problem is loudest. Weak, distant ties frequently bring more that is new than the strong ones you are already stuck on — Granovetter's ‘Strength of Weak Ties’ shows this. A new viewpoint is nothing but a node in a network you have not entered yet.
Is ‘signal’ something esoteric?
No. Here a signal means a stimulus, an impulse — what activates an empty relation in the first place. Sometimes measurable, sometimes only recognisable by its effect, but never meant mystically.