How to improve critical thinking: 6 exercises you can do on paper
To improve critical thinking, practise forming your own view before you meet anyone else's, then test it. Write ten thoughts on a question first. Then read, compare, and argue against yourself. Six short exercises below, each with a finish line, each done with a pen.
I will not promise these raise a skill score. I will tell you what you will see on the page, and where the evidence stops.
What is critical thinking, in plain words?
Critical thinking is checking a thought before you keep it. Where did it come from? Is it mine, or the first thing anyone would say? What would make it wrong? Who gains if I believe it? It is less about being clever and more about not accepting the first answer that arrives.
In my first job I noticed something I could not stop seeing. People looked at the surface of a problem and then decided. The discussions were shallow, and nobody seemed to miss the depth.
That is the everyday failure of critical thinking. Not a wrong answer. An answer reached too early.
Why does it feel harder now?
There is always a finished answer one tap away: a feed, a search, an AI. The thinking happens somewhere else and arrives done. One survey of knowledge workers found that people who trusted AI more also reported less critical thinking. It was self-reported and shows a link, not a cause.
That survey is by Lee and colleagues at Microsoft Research (CHI 2025). They asked 319 knowledge workers about their own use of generative AI at work. Higher confidence in the AI was associated with less critical thinking. Higher confidence in yourself was associated with more.
It is a survey, so it describes what people said about themselves. It does not prove the AI caused anything. But it matches the shape of the problem: the less you start from your own view, the less there is to check.
Ten before you prompt goes deeper into the AI side of this.
6 critical thinking exercises for adults
Each exercise takes five to ten minutes and needs a pen and a page. Do one a day, not all six. The first one is the foundation; the others work best on top of it.
1. Ten of your own before you read
Take the question in front of you. A decision at work, a news story, a claim a friend made. Before you read anything about it, write ten numbered thoughts. Short ones. Facts, guesses, doubts, questions.
The first three come fast. Those are usually the thoughts anyone would have. Around line five it goes quiet. Stay there. The lines after the quiet are the ones worth checking, because they are more likely to be yours.
This comes from a game I ran with my team in 2020. Every day at tea time, one person got a random topic. The first was "cow". Ten points, out loud, and you could not repeat anything the audience had already said. Within two minutes the shallow thoughts were gone. The tenth thought has the full story.
2. Compare: where did your thinking stop?
Now read one good source on the same question. Then go back to your ten. Mark each line:
- ✓ the source agrees
- ✗ the source disagrees
- ? the source does not mention it
The ? lines are interesting. Either you noticed something the source missed, or you are wrong in a way nobody has bothered to correct. Both are worth one more look.
3. Write the opposite case
Pick your strongest line. Now write three sentences arguing against it, as well as you can. Not a weak version. The version a smart person who disagrees with you would write.
If you cannot write it, you do not yet understand the question well enough to be sure.
4. What would change my mind?
Under your conclusion, write one line: "I would change my mind if…" and finish it with something specific. A number. An event. A fact you could check.
If nothing would change your mind, that is worth noticing too. It is not a conclusion any more. It is a belief.
5. Who gains if I believe this?
Take a claim you read today. An ad, a headline, a post. Write down who gains if you believe it: money, attention, votes, clicks. Then write who loses.
This is not about assuming everyone lies. It is about seeing the incentives around a claim before you take it in.
6. The tenth question
Instead of ten thoughts, write ten questions about one thing. "Why is this meeting on Monday?" "Who decided the price?" "What did this look like five years ago?"
Questions are easier to start with than answers, and the late ones tend to be the sharp ones.
How to improve critical thinking skills at work
Use exercise 1 before meetings and decisions, not after. Ten lines before a meeting means you arrive with your own view, so you can notice when the room changes it. Use exercise 4 on any decision that would be expensive to reverse.
A few ways to fit this into a working week:
- Before a meeting: ten lines on the agenda's main question. Bring the page.
- Before you ask an AI: your ten first, then the prompt. Compare the answer with your list.
- Before a big decision: "I would change my mind if…", written down, dated.
- Once a week: one claim from the news, exercise 5.
Will these exercises make me a better thinker?
I do not know, and I will not pretend to. Here is why I am careful.
A large review of brain-training research (Simons and colleagues, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 2016) found extensive evidence that training improves performance on the trained task. It found little evidence that it carries over to distantly related tasks or to everyday thinking. That review was about brain-training games, not about writing exercises like these. But the lesson applies: practising a task makes you better at that task. Whether it spreads further is a separate question.
So treat these as practice for a specific habit: forming your own view before you take someone else's, and checking it. If that habit is what you want, practise exactly that. Brain training for adults, without the games covers this in more detail.
A simple daily routine
- Pick one question a day. Use /bored if you want a random word instead; it gives you one and ten empty lines, with no sign-up.
- Exercise 1: ten lines, five minutes.
- One more exercise from the list, five minutes.
- Keep every page. At the end of the week, read your ? lines and your "I would change my mind if…" lines together.
If you want a gym for it
Paper is enough.
I built DoomsHuman for myself first. Every topic starts with ten bullets you write from your own head, and nothing else opens until you do. Only then does DoomsAI help, and it works from what you wrote. Three reflection prompts close each dive. Recall questions come back after 1, 3, 7, 21 and 60 days. You can try the first exercise without an account.
Why build it? To prepare humans for Dooms Day. When corporate giants or a super AI take over most of the world, a small group of people will rebel. That group will be smart, sharp and real. Checking your own thoughts before you keep them is one small step.
FAQ
How can I improve my critical thinking?
Practise forming your own view before you read anyone else's, then test it. Write ten thoughts on a question, read one good source, mark where you agree and disagree, and write the strongest case against your own view. Five to ten minutes a day.
What are some critical thinking exercises for adults?
Ten thoughts before you read. Compare your list with a source. Write the opposite case. Finish the line "I would change my mind if…". Ask who gains if you believe a claim. Write ten questions instead of ten answers. Each one fits on a single page.
How do you develop critical thinking skills?
By practising the specific habit you want, regularly, and checking it honestly. For most adults that habit is slowing down before accepting the first answer. A short daily exercise on paper is a practical way to practise it.
Does AI hurt critical thinking?
There is no settled answer. One survey of 319 knowledge workers (Lee et al., CHI 2025) found that more trust in AI was associated with less self-reported critical thinking. It is a survey and shows a link, not a cause. A simple safeguard: write your own view before you ask.
