How to decide

Disambiguation

• Mental Model
A simplified explanation of how things work

• Principle
Fundamental truths or law that serves as the basis for a system of belief or behavior. Unbreakable rule and guidelines that our action should be aligned with

• Value
Internal moral code based on the principle we hold to be true. Mental map of how things should be

General

Mental Models

• The Map Is Not the Territory
• All Models Are Wrong, Some Are Useful

• Circle of competence

• First Principle

• Inversion

• Working backwards

• Second-order thinking

• Margin of safety

• Two-track analysis

• Global and local maxima

• Probabilistic thinking
• Small bets
• Thinking in Bets | Annie Duke
• “Brain trust” from Pixar
• Bayesian thinking
• Fat-tailed curves
• Black swan event

• Compounding

• Principle agent problem

• Activation Energy
• People say they’re not doing the work because it’s hard. But it’s hard because they’re not doing the work. (Pursue pain)
• The Activation Energy of Building Better Habits

• Cognitive biases
• Survivorship bias
• Confirmation bias
• Availability heuristic
• Attribution error
 

Avoid Pitfalls

• Close minded
• There are always more than two options

• Beware of advice
• Beware of advice
• Don’t believe everything you hear

• Overcompensate
• Overcompensate to compensate

• Decide too fast
• Let pedestrians define the walkways
• Decision is 2 step process, learning must come before deciding
• Never seize on the first available option, no matter how good it seems, before you’ve asked questions and explored.
• Everything looks bigger up close (step back)
• Doing nothing
• Cognitive dissonance

• Lack of patience (short sighted)
• Don’t be a donkey
• cost of not decide vs more information

• Cognitive biases

• Over-squeeze dots

Personal

Goal

Self Awareness

• Meditation (Mindfulness & Clarity)

• Quizzes
• PrincipleYou
PrinciplesYou From Ray Dalio
Find out what you're really like and how we relate at PrinciplesYou.com

https://principlesyou.com/

• Online quizzes
Quizzes - Adam Grant
This assessment provides a look at your reciprocity style using state-of-the-art methods in organizational psychology. For each question, give the answer that comes naturally to you. Your results will only be as accurate as you are honest-and self-aware. Take the Quiz

https://adamgrant.net/quizzes/

• https://nesslabs.com/mbti

• Self Reflection (Daily, Weekly Journaling)

• Surveying others
• Peer reviews at work
• Radical candor
• Therapist
• Radical self-inquiry

Principles

• Just about right

• Embrace reality and deal with it

• Own outcomes
• Everything is my fault

• Be radically open-minded
• Understand ego and blind spots
• Understand people are wired very differently and appreciate “thoughtful disagreement”
• Triangulate view with believable people who are willing to disagree

• Prepare for the worst
• Probabilistic thinking
• How to thrive in an unknowable future

• Second-order thinking
• Synthesize the situation through time
• I’m a very slow thinker

• Antifragile

• Hell yeah or no
• Are you present-focused or future-focused?
• Resolve to Live a Deep Life

Examples

Career Change

• Promotion can be appealing (zoom in) but at cost of unwanted liability (zoom out)

• Change is inevitable but “timing is everything”

• Thinking inversely helps us avoid bad decisions

• Stories
• Damon Chen (big tech corp → solo entrepreneur) side gig story