Ever been told to 'sleep on it' when you were struggling to make a decision or come up with an idea? A new study suggests this is actually a great idea - your brain may in fact be able to process information during naps that it's not even consciously aware of. That's right, you have a great excuse to take a nap at work from now on.

I lose my keys often. I text the words "Running 10 minutes late" more than I should. I fail to bring in all the bags of random kid crap from my car each night, so I'm constantly grabbing new bags and filling them with more random kid crap. I eat stuff that makes me feel lousy afterward. I overestimate the amount groceries we consume and am constantly tossing out food.

The maximum number of face turns needed to solve the classic Rubik's cube is 20, and the maximum number of quarter turns is 26. It took 30 years to discover these numbers, which were finally proved by Tomas Rokicki and Morley Davidson using a mixture of mathematics and computer calculation. (The puzzle does have 43 quintillion possible configurations after all.)

So how did the current world-record holder SeungBeom Cho manage to solve Rubik's cube in under five seconds? (4.59 seconds to be exact.)

When it comes to making decisions, there's perhaps nowhere more important to make the right one than in space. When you're cruising above Earth a bad decision can have some pretty hefty consequences.

Worrying is part of life. According to a new analysis, 38 per cent of us worry about something every day -- which honestly seems low. With a small tweak, though, you can turn your worries into a productive way to solve problems.

When the pressure's on, your brain can switch to panic mode in a hurry. Keep your calm by avoiding the rabbit hole of "what if"s your mind can generate.

Here's a list of the things I can do in 4.74 seconds.

Um... I've got nothing.

Critical thinking is a valuable career skill that anyone can improve with the right process. Here are five tips to help you solve problems more efficiently and make better decisions.

It can get annoying when a toddler asks "Why?" incessantly. But maybe they're just trying to teach you something. The next time you have a complex problem, ask yourself "Why?" five times to get at the root of it.

When you have a problem with somebody that won't go away, you need to mix things up. If you stop sounding like an angry broken record and try improvising a completely different response, you can surprise the other person into reacting differently and give yourself control again.

If you're feeling stuck in a creative rut, giving your imagination a quick jolt can help. This exercise can help you refocus and it only takes 60 seconds.

Programming can be as fulfilling an experience as it is frustrating. While you might have all the tools and design patterns in the world, sometimes a problem can seem unsolvable, or the solution too complex and lengthy to implement and anxiety quickly builds. So what do you do when your brain gives out at a critical coding juncture?

The first step to fixing a problem is identifying it. Most of us may stop there, but as you work to fix your problems, it helps to go back and re-identify what the issue is every so often.

According to new research commissioned by cloud software provider Zendesk, customer-facing self-service technologies are all the rage. This infographic explains how more and more consumers are ditching call centres in favour of servicing themselves. After all, who needs the human touch when your hands can get the job done by themselves? (We mean on a keyboard, you grots.)

Facebook may test your patience from time to time, but unless you're engaged in the social networking site's multitude of interactive time wasters, there's not much to do but post photos and status updates. If you're the problem-solving type after a deeper online social experience, the newly-minted Hacker Rank might be for you.

Sometimes, the logical approach yields no fruit, or the fruit is kind of sad-looking and a bit squishy. That's usually when we demand an answer from our abdominal organs, even though the processing capabilities of one's appendix is questionable, especially if it has been removed. Despite all, well, logic, a small study has shown that thinking with your digestive tract can be beneficial in moderation.

Problems can be difficult to solve when we only know the issue and none of the steps to fix it. Sometimes it's even more daunting to figure out what those steps are at all. This guide will help you take just about any problem and figure out a plan to solve it and stay motivated when handling long-term issues.

New ideas and ways of thinking—or people who think differently than you do, for that matter—aren't always easy to embrace. Instead of sticking with your knee-jerk reactions, better understand your reaction with the Five Whys.