What we see depends mainly on what we look for.  [John Lubbock, British banker, politician, naturalist and archaeologist]

If this is the case, what precedes this?   What should we look for?   This is why experience is so important in engineering.  Determining what to look for is about prioritizing things we should look for and things we should ignore.

To know what to ask is already to know half. [Durant summarizing Aristotle]

Since engineering, like art, is the conscious use of skill and creative imagination, in addition to the ability to sift through many parameters, the only way to create a solution is to ignore things we can ignore and spent time on the things we need to spend time on.   The only way to do this is to actively look for things that matter on our projects.