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2022-08-12
Decision Making

Thinking tools

Personal decision making guide

Disambiguation

Fundamental truths or law that serves as the basis for a system of belief or behavior.

  • Value

Internal moral code

General

Mental Models

i.e. how to make “smart” decisions (the reasoning of our thought process).

  • The Map Is Not the Territory linked page

- All Models Are Wrong, Some Are Useful

  • Circle of competence linked page
  • First Principle linked page
  • Inversion linked page
  • Working backwards linked page
  • Second-order thinking linked page
  • Margin of safety linked page
  • Two-track analysislinked page
  • Global and local maxima linked page
  • Probabilistic thinking linked page

- Small bets
- Thinking in Bets \| Annie Duke
- “Brain trust” from Pixar
- Bayesian thinking
- Fat-tailed curveslinked page
- Black swan eventlinked page

  • Compounding linked page
  • Principle agent problem
  • Activation Energylinked page

- 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 linked page
- Confirmation biaslinked page
- Availability heuristic linked page
- Attribution error

Avoid Pitfalls

i.e. how to avoid “bad decision”.

  • 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 linked page

  • Lack of patience (short sighted)

- Don’t be a donkey
- cost of not decide vs more information

  • Cognitive biases
  • Over-squeeze dots
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Personal

Goal

i.e. My desired outcome (“good enough”) for decision making.
Make practical decisions that align best with long term interest grounded by current situation.

Self Awareness

i.e. Who I am (nature & nurture, strength & weakness, desire & fear)
Only through a deep understanding of who I am then can I make decisions that are rational or reasonable.
Tools I use for better self awareness

  • Meditation (Mindfulness & Clarity)
  • Quizzes

- PrincipleYou linked page
> Embedded: bookmark
- Online quizzes linked page
> Embedded: bookmark
- https://nesslabs.com/mbti

  • Self Reflection (Daily, Weekly Journaling)
  • Surveying others

- Peer reviews at work
- Radical candor linked page
- Therapist
- Radical self-inquiry

Principles

i.e. the rules I’m following and sticking with when making decisions in similar situations

- Everything is my fault linked page

  • 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

- 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

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