The document describes a problem where a person must pick numbers from a set while not being able to pick adjacent numbers. It presents two options when picking the first number and explains that the solution is to always pick the option with the maximum total by recursively calculating the maximum value of picking the current number versus not picking it and moving two positions ahead. Pseudocode uses recursion to calculate the solution by taking the maximum of either skipping the current number or picking it and moving two positions ahead.