Reading Time: < 1 min The next mental model that I’m digging into is the concept of the “skill stack”. The idea behind this is that having a wide range of skills can help multiply your success. It’s similar to the idea I shared earlier this year about wider study helping even in narrow fields. Andrew McVagh gives a great […]
Second-Order Thinking
Reading Time: 2 min The mental model of Second-Order Thinking simply means to look beyond your initial output, and think about what other consequences might result from it. A great way to think about this is to use a similar pattern to the Five Whys, and just follow your decision with a few “And Then What?” statements. A good […]
Redundancy
Reading Time: < 1 min The mental model of redundancy is one that we’re all familiar with, and likely becomes more engrained as we grow older and learn from our mistakes. Creating redundancy can take a bit of work, but has tremendous benefits if it’s called into play. A common redundancy that I push for is to keep more backups […]
Reason Respecting
Reading Time: < 1 min The mental model of Reason Respecting, sometimes known as “Because Why”, is the idea that giving reasons behind requests make people much more likely to succeed at the task you’ve given them. There are a few good examples of this, some of which almost seem counter-intuitive. The 1977 Copy Machine Study is a great example. […]
Probabilistic Thinking
Reading Time: 2 min The next mental model I’m digging into is the idea of Probabilistic Thinking. This is the effort to try to determine the likelihood of any particular outcome ahead of time. With most things in life there are an infinite set of factors to consider, but you can focus on the big ones and get a […]
Pareto Principle
Reading Time: 2 min This is another mental model that you’ve likely heard of before — the Pareto Principle, often known as the “80/20 rule”, where 20% of the effort can produce 80% of the results. A great example in my life is my big reading shortcut using Blinkist. I can “finish” a book in 20% of the time, […]
Occam’s Razor
Reading Time: < 1 min The next mental model is one that I already use from time to time, but I thought was worth unpacking a bit more. Occam’s Razor is simply stated as “entities should not be multiplied unnecessarily“, but that can be a little hard to apply. I prefer the more useful version of: “when you have two […]
Law of Small Numbers
Reading Time: < 1 min The next mental model to unpack is the Law of Small Numbers. The basic idea here is that the smaller a sample size you have, the more variation in patterns you will see. As a result, don’t trust estimates unless they’re based on a large sample size. I enjoy messing with this law early in […]
Inversion
Reading Time: < 1 min The next mental model that I’m looking at is the idea of inversion. The idea is very simple, yet counterintuitive — to find the answer you’re looking for, start by listing possible solutions that you know won’t work. I see this two different ways. First, is just listing the downsides to two different situations. If […]
Incentives
Reading Time: < 1 min Some of the mental models that I’ve been sharing can be a bit difficult to understand, but that’s not the case here. People can be motivated by incentives, and choosing the right reward can bring huge benefits. Charlie Munger has a great example of this with FedEx: As he explains, the integrity of the FedEx […]