Last night I ran into a problem that took way longer to solve than I expected.
The delay had two causes: I was working from an incorrect assumption, and I
couldn't test each case of the solution space generated by my bad assumption.
Because I was uncertain of how much of the solution space I had searched, I
undoubtedly reduplicated efforts, which added delay. When I guessed I had
searched enough, I examined my assumptions and found the error.
All this added up to a big bunch of inefficiency.

<p>
Clearly, I need to work on my problem solving skills. In the future:
<ol>
<li>Define solution space
<li>Test each case in order of decreasing probability
<li>At some probability level, examine assumptions.
</ol>

<p>
The probability level should be determined by cost to evaluate remaining cases
versus cost to check assumptions. Both will be estimated costs; good luck. ;)

<p>