Each of us discovered a great mind at one point whose writing captures exactly what we think or have been trying to think but couldn't find the right words for.  Yet, the powerful influence of this great mind is so potentially overwhelming that it threatens our ability to think for ourselves. What was supposed to help expand your mind may have closed it.

Thinking for yourself

The philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer placed the highest value on thinking for yourself. If we lose the ability for independent thought, then we miss out on a key opportunity to become our authentic, original selves. If we don't think for ourselves, we will also not know what we should do, as opposed to what we are told to do. Schopenhauer was surprisingly critical of the value of reading. He states that reading too much will cause us to fail to think for ourselves, yet, he was exceptionally well read.

Reading and the value of thinking for yourself

Schopenhauer was very clear: ‘Reading is a mere surrogate for one’s own thinking.'Two main problems concerned him:<ul><li>Opportunity cost. When you're reading, you could be thinking for yourself. This is only a problem if the kind of thinking you do while reading is significantly different from the kind you do when you are not reading. </li><li>Originality. Reading inserts foreign thoughts into our own, which never really belong to us.</li></ul>

Don’t use reading as a substitute for thinking

Apart from originality, authenticity and ownership are the primary intellectual virtues that come from thinking for yourself Thinking for yourself enables a special kind of spontaneity, variety and responsiveness to your surroundings.  Thinking for yourself does not force one specific thought on the mind, like reading. Reading has already been organised according to the mind of the author, whereas our own experiences demand that we impose some order on it ourselves.

Thinking for yourself will make your thoughts your own

The ultimate result of thinking for yourself is what Schopenhauer calls ‘the maturity of knowledge’, which is a state of total organic integration between thoughts and experiences. This maturity does not have to do with the power of one's intellect but the organisation of its contents.  Thinking is, at the least, looking at things for yourself. It avoids putting a foreign concept between the mind and the world, otherwise the two will not make contact. Schopenhauer ensured that anything he found in books was assimilated only if he could connect it to experience.

The maturity of knowledge

Schopenhauer was never totally against reading. Seeing the world from someone else's perspective brings our attention to things we simply wouldn't have noticed. Schopenhauer’s real point is that reading is best when it is accompanied by thinking for yourself. It's better to read a little and read it well than to read a lot but do it poorly. When you do read, you don't have to agree with the writers.

Combine your reading with thinking for yourself

Schopenhauer admits that reading is a better way of engaging with another person's mind because the writer's works may be richer in content than his company, the result and fruit of all his thinking and studying.  <ul><li>When Schopenhauer quotes from the authors he read, it is because he takes courage from them, but not content.</li><li>He stresses that this still does not mean we can import literary qualities into our own writing simply by reading them.  Reading shapes us for writing by teaching us the use we can make of our own natural gifts.</li></ul>

Read for company and encouragement in your thinking

Use the limits of reading by starting from where your writers left off.  Allow your favourite authors to inspire you to look at the world differently.

Allow beautiful writing to entice you to think for yourself

Thinking for yourself does not mean you keep it all in your head.   Your original thoughts demand to be put in an external form. It could take the form of writing, a conversation, or even in forms of expression such as visual or musical arts.

Write as a form of thinking

Schopenhauer and Proust can help you find inspiration from your favourite writers while also retaining an independent mind

Stashed ideas

How to think for yourself | Psyche Guides

Even if you usually excel at finding solutions, there will be times when it seems that there’s no obvious answer to a problem. It could be that you’re facing a unique challenge that you’ve never needed to overcome before. You could feel overwhelmed because of a new context in which everything seems to be foreign, or you may feel like you’re lacking the skills or tools to navigate the situation. When facing a difficult dilemma, Creative Problem Solving offers a structured method to help you find an innovative and effective solution.

Solving Problems

The Creative Problem Solving process, sometimes referred to as CPS, is a proven way to approach a challenge more imaginatively. By redefining problems or opportunities, it becomes possible to move in a completely new and more innovative direction.From its invention by two creative theorists to its application at all levels of creative thinking — from personal to organisation creativity — Creative Problem Solving is an enduring method to generate innovative solutions to complex challenges.

Creative Problem Solving(CPS)

The first principle is to look at problems and reframe them into questions. While problem statements tend to not generate many responses, open questions can lead to a wealth of insights, perspectives, and helpful information — which in turn make it easier to feel inspired and to come up with potential solutions. Instead of saying “this is the problem”, ask yourself: “Why are we facing this problem? What’s currently preventing us from solving this problem? What could be some potential solutions?”

The Four Principles: Reframing The Problem Into Questions

The second principle is to balance divergent and convergent thinking. During <a href="https://nesslabs.com/divergent-thinking">divergent thinking</a>, all options are entertained. Throw all ideas into the ring, regardless of how far-fetched they might be. This is sometimes <a href="https://www.basadur.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2014-Creative-Problem-Solving-Stylescognitive-work-demands-and-organizational-adaptability-JABS.pdf">referred</a> to as non-judgmental, non-rational divergent thinking. It’s based on the willingness to consider all new ideas. Convergent thinking, in contrast, is the thinking mode used to narrow down all of the possible ideas into a sensible shortlist. Finding a midpoint creates a steady state of creativity in which new ideas can be assessed and appraised.

The Four Principles: Divergent And Convergent Thinking

Tangential to the second principle, the third principle for creative problem solving is to defer judgement. By judging solutions too early, you will risk shutting down idea generation. Take your time during the divergent thinking phase to give your mind the freedom to dream ambitious ideas. Only when engaged in convergent thinking should you start judging the ideas you generated in terms of potential, appropriateness, and feasibility.

The Four Principles: Defer Judgement

Creative Problem Solving requires you to say “yes, and” rather than “no, but” in order to encourage generative discussions. You will only stifle your creativity by automatically saying no to ideas that seem illogical or unfeasible. Using positive language allows you to explore possibilities, leaving space for the seeds of ideas to grow into applicable solutions.

The Four Principles: Say Yes

The first step is to understand what the problem is. By turning the problem into a set of questions, you can explore the issue properly and fully grasp the situation, obstacles, and opportunities. This is also the time to gather facts and the opinions of others, if relevant to the problem at hand.

Four Steps To Practise CPS: 1. Formulate Questions

The second step is when you can express your creativity through divergent thinking. Brainstorm new, wild and off-the-wall ideas to generate new concepts that could be the key to solving your dilemma. This can be done on your own, or as part of a <a href="https://nesslabs.com/brainstorming">brainstorming session</a> with your team.

2. Conceptualizing And Exploring Ideas

Now is the time to switch to convergent thinking. Reflect on the ideas you came up with in step two to decide which ones could be successful. As part of optimising, you will need to decide which options might best fit your needs and logistical constraints, how you can make your concepts stronger, and finally decide which idea to move forwards with.

3. Optimize And Develop Solutions

Figuring out how you’ll turn the selected idea into reality is the final step after deciding which of your ideas offers the best solution. Identify what you’ll need to get started, and, if appropriate, let others know of your plans. Communication is particularly important for innovative ideas that require buy-in from others, especially if you think you might initially be met with resistance. You may also need to consider whether you’ll need additional resources to ensure the success of complex solutions, and request the required support in good time.

4. Formulating A Plan And Implementation

Creative Problem Solving is a great way to generate unique ideas when there appears to be no obvious solution to a problem. If you’re feeling overwhelmed by a seemingly impossible challenge, this structured approach will help you generate solutions that you might otherwise not have considered. By practising Creative Problem Solving, some of the most improbable ideas could lead to the discovery of the perfect solution.

The Bottom Line

Learn Creative Problem Solving in 5 minutes.

When facing a difficult dilemma, Creative Problem Solving offers a structured method to help you find an innovative and effective solution.

Creative Problem Solving: from complex challenge to innovative solution

<ul><li>Rationality is a tool for achieving a goal.</li><li>Rationality aids in the decision-making process.</li><li>Ignorance and self-restraint are both viable options.</li><li>Science is the application of logic to the real world.</li><li>We become less partial — and more sensible – as a result of institutions.</li><li>People are punished for their own good, which leads to a more rational commons.</li><li>Because it is rational, our most important moral principle is powerful.</li></ul>

Rationality: What Sets Humans Apart From Other Species

The definition of rational, according to dictionaries, is "having a reason." And the term reason derives from the Latin word ratio, which means "reason."Rationality, according to philosophers, is the ability to use information to achieve goals. The term "knowledge" refers to true beliefs that are supported by evidence. We wouldn't consider someone rational if they acted on incorrect beliefs.But rationality entails more than just believing correct thoughts like "1 Plus 1 = 2." It also facilitates our tasks.

Rationality Is a Tool for Achieving a Goal

When one path is blocked, we may always attempt another. This is human rationality in action.Reason is a tool for achieving a goal. Passions are the source of goals. That is, feelings such as love, rage, pride, envy, and fear stem from desires, drives, and emotions like love, anger, pride, envy, and fear. Reason, therefore, is the "slave of the passions."Reason alone cannot tell us which goals to pursue. They're neither rational nor irrational in a logical sense - they're arational.However, there are instances when we must choose between competing objectives. That's when logic comes into play.

Rationality Is Merely a Means to An Aim

The conjunction fallacy occurs when a person assumes that specific conditions are more likely than a single general one. ‍What are people thinking? A class of events described by a single statement can be generic and abstract, with nothing for the mind to hold on to. A class of events described by a conjunction of statements can be more vivid, especially when they spell out a storyline we can watch in the theatre of our imagination. Intuitive probability is driven by imaginability: the easier something is to visualize, the likelier it seems.

The Conjunction Fallacy

The availability heuristic is a method of making decisions based on familiar facts - anything that has left a lasting impression on our minds.There is too much information circulating in society to evaluate the truth of each point or lack thereof. To combat this, we create mental shortcuts. When we are presented with new information, we make a quick inventory of our current beliefs in order to form an initial assessment of the material’s veracity.

The Availability Heuristic

The media has amplified our irrational judgments. One classic example is the safety of flying versus driving.The world’s roads account for 1.3 million fatal accidents each year, while plane crashes kill 250 people. We hear about the single plane crash of the year, but not about the 364 days of safe air travel. If news outlets used the same approach with cars, they would have to run the headline, “35,000 dead in road accidents yesterday,” every single day.

Our Judgements Are Mostly Irrational

Bayes’ rule or Bayes’ Theorem is the law of probability governing the strength of evidence—the rule saying how much to revise our probabilities (change our minds) when we learn a new fact or observe new evidence.Probabilistic thinking means avoiding absolutes. When we express the likelihood of our beliefs, we open the door to further discussions. Rather than expressing things in black and white terms, as true or false, try saying: ‘I’m an 80 on that’, or ‘I’m only a 25 on that’. As a result, we remain receptive to new evidence while gathering information to guide future truth-seeking efforts.

Bayesian Reasoning: Probabilistic Thinking

Knowing something does not imply that you will act rationally on it.Willpower isn't always up to the challenge of resisting temptation.Preventing yourself from acting on temptation is one approach to fighting it.If you go shopping after you've eaten, for example, it's much easier to resist the siren melodies of unhealthy treats. Similarly, if you've advised your company to set aside a portion of your paycheck for retirement, you can't spend money you know you should be saving.

Ignorance and Self-Restraint Are Both Viable Options

Selective ignorance can also be used to combat bias. That is why jury members are not allowed to see inadmissible evidence obtained through coercion or hearsay.Good scientists also protect their work from bias by performing double-blind studies in which they are unaware of which patients received medicine and which received a placebo. In both circumstances, ignorance aids in maintaining objectivity.

Ignorance To Combat Bias

Motivated reasoning describes how we let our beliefs mold our perception of the world, ensuring that we see things as we are, not as they are.When we add a belief to our arsenal, evidence for why it’s true begins compounding. Even if provided with proof that disproves these beliefs, we will interpret such evidence in ways that support our currently held narratives.The human brain is not a level playing field for rational decision-making. The myth that we are reasonable creatures stems from the incorrect assumption that our brains are, by default, instruments of logic.

Motivated Reasoning

We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right.

Confirmation bias causes us to focus on the information that reinforces our beliefs while ignoring or distorting disconfirming evidence. Part of this reasoning is our tendency to treat ideas like possessions, things we wish to retain at all costs.People are often more concerned with winning an argument than discovering the truth. Truth-seeking has become a competition that rewards dogmatic beliefs and outlaws open-mindedness. This has given rise to the social notion that changing our minds is a sign of weakness. When, in fact,  it is a sign of substantial intellectual strength.

Confirmation Bias

The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.

According to the bandwagon fallacy, something is true simply because it is popular; therefore, the popularity of something validates its truth.Product advertisers use this ploy every time they use phrases like “most popular,” despite the fact that the popularity of a product is irrelevant to its merits

The Bandwagon Fallacy

The genetic fallacy describes accepting a claim as true or false solely based on its origin. An idea's source doesn’t validate or invalidate its claim to truth, yet it is one of the most prevalent fallacies you will encounter in the 21st century.

The Genetic Fallacy

In literary criticism, the affective fallacy refers to evaluating works based on the effect they have on the reader, who is free to reject anything deemed harmful, hurtful, or uncomfortable. The opposite is equally true. Although often described as a literary criticism term, the fallacy applies to any case where someone judges the validity of a message solely on its emotional impact.

The Affective Fallacy

Myopic discounting is the reversal of preference based on the distance to the reward. Its name derives from myopia, which means a lack of discernment or foreseeing. The preference reversal is called myopic, or nearsighted, because we see an attractive temptation that is near to us in time all too clearly, while the faraway choices are emotionally blurred and (a bit contrary to the ophthalmological metaphor) we judge them more objectively.

Myopic Discounting 

Hyperbolic discounting is closely related to myopic discounting and points out our tendency to choose immediate rewards over future ones, even when the immediate rewards are smaller. Succumbing to this tendency results in poor decision-making because it promotes impulsivity and immediate gratification, behaviours that prioritize short-term enjoyment over long-term wellbeing.

Hyperbolic Discounting

When someone makes a claim to promote an emotional response rather than provide relevant facts to support their argument, they commit the appeal to emotion fallacy.While arguments often contain emotional components, the appeal to emotion fallacy occurs when a person uses emotion to manipulate and hide the fact that they cannot offer a rational counterargument.

Appeal To Emotion Fallacy

When we pass judgment on someone simply because they are associated with someone we already have an opinion about, this is known as the guilty by association, or association fallacy.If there is a particular podcast host we dislike because of their terrible takes, every guest of theirs may leave a sour impression in our minds. When we next see the guest's name appear online, we will interpret everything they say in a negative light due to the traces the negative association has left in our minds (availability bias).

Guilty by Association

Biases distort our cognitive system and prevent us from making rational decisions. The myth that we are reasonable creatures stems from the incorrect assumption that our brains are, by default, instruments of logic. Through analyzing the most common cognitive fallacies, we’re taken on a journey through the mechanics of the mind towards the root of our irrationality, which the author argues is due to motives shaping our judgment.

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021 'Punchy, funny and invigorating ... Pinker is the high priest of rationalism' Sunday Times 'If you've ever considered taking drugs to make yourself smarter, read Rationality instead. It's cheaper, more entertaining, and more effective' Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind In the twenty-first century, humanity is reaching new heights of scientific understanding - and at the same time appears to be losing its mind. How can a species that discovered vaccines for Covid-19 in less than a year produce so much fake news, quack cures and conspiracy theorizing? In Rationality, Pinker rejects the cynical cliché that humans are simply an irrational species - cavemen out of time fatally cursed with biases, fallacies and illusions. After all, we discovered the laws of nature, lengthened and enriched our lives and set the benchmarks for rationality itself. Instead, he explains, we think in ways that suit the low-tech contexts in which we spend most of our lives, but fail to take advantage of the powerful tools of reasoning we have built up over millennia: logic, critical thinking, probability, causal inference, and decision-making under uncertainty. These tools are not a standard part of our educational curricula, and have never been presented clearly and entertainingly in a single book - until now. Rationality matters. It leads to better choices in our lives and in the public sphere, and is the ultimate driver of social justice and moral progress. Brimming with insight and humour, Rationality will enlighten, inspire and empower. 'A terrific book, much-needed for our time' Peter Singer

Rationality

Thinking about a problem from an inverse perspective can unlock new solutions and strategies.The central mental model to help you become a chef with your thinking is arguing from first principles. It’s the practical starting point to being wrong less, and it means thinking from the bottom up, using basic building blocks of what you think is true to build sound (and sometimes new) conclusions. First principles are the group of self-evident assumptions that make up the foundation on which your conclusions rest—the ingredients in a recipe or the mathematical axioms that underpin a formula.

First Principles Thinking

When arguing from first principles, you are deliberately starting from scratch. You are explicitly avoiding the potential trap of conventional wisdom, which could turn out to be wrong. To be wrong less, you need to test your assumptions in the real world, a process known as de-risking. There is a risk that one or more of your assumptions are untrue, and so the conclusions you reach could also be false. The next step is actually going out and testing these assumptions, proving or disproving them, and then adjusting your strategy appropriately.

De-Risking: Testing Your Assumptions

Ockham’s razor advises that the simplest explanation is most likely to be true. Look at your explanation of a situation, break it down into its constituent assumptions, and for each one, ask yourself: Does this assumption really need to be here? What evidence do I have that it should remain? Is it a false dependency?Overfitting occurs when you use an overly complicated explanation when a simpler one will do. It’s what happens when you don’t heed Ockham’s razor, when you get sucked into the conjunction fallacy or make a similar unforced error.

Ockham’s Razor

If you’re trying to be as objective as possible when making a decision or solving a problem, you always want to account for your frame of reference. A frame-of-reference mental trap is framing. Framing refers to the way you present a situation or explanation. You will of course be influenced by your perspective, but you don’t want to be unknowingly influenced. If you think you may not have the full understanding of a situation, then you must actively try to get it by looking from a variety of different frames of reference.

Your Frame Of Reference

Nudging: You can be nudged in a direction by a subtle word choice or other environmental cues.Anchoring: The tendency to rely too heavily on first impressions when making decisions.Availability bias: This occurs when a bias, or distortion, creeps into your objective view of reality thanks to information recently made available to you. Further, the availability bias stems from overreliance on your recent experiences within your frame of reference, at the expense of the big picture.

The Unconcious Mental Models

Consequently, to be wrong less when thinking about people, you must find ways to increase your empathy, opening up a deeper understanding of what other people are really thinking.                In any conflict between two people, there are two sides to the story. Then there is the third story, the story that a third, impartial observer would recount.Forcing yourself to think as an impartial observer can help you in any conflict situation, including difficult business negotiations and personal disagreements.

Understanding Other's Point Of View

If you can coherently articulate other points of view, even those directly in conflict with your own, then you will be less likely to make biased or incorrect judgments.

Most respectful interpretation(MRI): In any situation, you can explain a person’s behavior in many ways. MRI asks you to interpret the other parties’ actions in the most respectful way possible.Hanlon’s razor invites you to never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by carelessness.The third story, most respectful interpretation, and Hanlon’s razor are all attempts to overcome what psychologists call the fundamental attribution error, where you frequently make errors by attributing others’ behaviors to their internal, or fundamental, motivations rather than external factors.

Hanlon's Razor and the Fundamental Attribution Error

The veil of ignorance holds that when thinking about how society should be organized, we should do so by imagining ourselves ignorant of our particular place in the world, as if there were a veil preventing us from knowing who we are.The human tendency to gather and interpret new information in a biased way to confirm preexisting beliefs is called confirmation bias.Confirmation bias is so hard to overcome that there is a related model called the backfire effect that describes the phenomenon of digging in further on a position when faced with clear evidence that disproves it.

The Notorious Confirmation Bias

You may also succumb to holding on to incorrect beliefs because of disconfirmation bias, where you impose a stronger burden of proof on the ideas you don’t want to believe.The pernicious effects of confirmation bias and related models can be explained by cognitive dissonance, the stress felt by holding two contradictory, dissonant, beliefs at once.A real trick to being wrong less is to fight your instincts to dismiss new information and instead embrace new ways of thinking and new paradigms.

Holding Two Different Beliefs Together

Thinking Gray: You may think about issues in terms of black and white, but the truth is somewhere in between, a shade of gray. A truly effective leader, however, needs to be able to see the shades of gray inherent in a situation in order to make wise decisions as to how to proceed.Devil’s advocate: Playing the Devil’s advocate means taking up an opposing side of an argument, even if it is one you don’t agree with. One approach is to force yourself literally to write down different cases for a given decision or appoint different members in a group to do so.

Overcoming Confirmation Bias

In any situation where you can spot spillover effects (like a polluting factory), look for an externality (like bad health effects) lurking nearby. Fixing it will require intervention either by fiat (like government regulation) or by setting up a marketplace system according to the Coase theorem (like cap and trade).Beware of situations with asymmetric information, as they can lead to principal-agent problems.

Anything That Can Go Wrong, Will

<ul><li>Choose activities to work on based on their relevance to your north star.</li><li>Focus your time on just one of these truly important activities at a time (no multitasking!), making it the top idea on your mind.</li><li>Select between options based on opportunity cost models. </li><li>Use the Pareto principle to find the 80/20 in any activity and increase your leverage at every turn.</li><li>Recognize when you’ve hit diminishing returns and avoid negative returns.</li><li>Use commitment and the default effect to avoid present bias, and periodic evaluations to avoid loss aversion and the sunk-cost fallacy.</li></ul>

Spend Your Time Wisely

Adopt an experimental mindset, looking for opportunities to run experiments and apply the scientific method wherever possible.Respect inertia: create or join healthy flywheels; avoid strategy taxes and trying to enact change in high-inertia situations unless you have a tactical advantage such as the discovery of a catalyst and a lot of potential energy.When enacting change, think deeply about how to reach critical mass and how you will navigate the technology adoption life cycle.Actively cultivate your luck surface area and put in work needed to not be subsumed by entropy.”

Becoming One with Nature 

<ul><li>Avoid succumbing to the gambler’s fallacy or the base rate fallacy.</li><li>Anecdotal evidence and correlations you see in data are good hypothesis generators, but correlation does not imply causation—you still need to rely on well-designed experiments to draw strong conclusions.</li><li>Look for tried-and-true experimental designs, such as randomized controlled experiments or A/B testing, that show statistical significance.</li><li>The normal distribution is particularly useful in the experimental analysis due to the central limit theorem. </li></ul>

Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics

<ul><li>When tempted to use a pro-con list, consider upgrading to cost-benefit analysis or decision tree as appropriate.</li><li>When making any quantitative assessment, run a sensitivity analysis across inputs to uncover key drivers and appreciate where you may need to seek greater accuracy in your assumptions. Pay close attention to any discount rate used.</li><li>Beware of black swan events and unknown unknowns. Use systems thinking and scenario analysis to more systematically uncover them and assess their impact.</li></ul>

Decisions, Decisions 

<ul><li>Analyze conflict situations through a game-theory lens. Look to see if your situation is analogous to common situations like the prisoner’s dilemma, ultimatum game, or war of attrition.</li><li>Consider how you can convince others to join your side by being more persuasive through the use of influence models like reciprocity, commitment, liking, social proof, scarcity, and authority. And watch out for how they are being used on you, especially through dark patterns.</li><li>Think about how a situation is being framed and whether there is a way to frame it that better communicates your point of view.</li></ul>

Dealing with Conflict   

Leadership is unlocking people’s potential to become better.

People are not interchangeable. They come from a variety of backgrounds and with a varied set of personalities, strengths, and goals. To be the best manager, you must manage the person, accounting for each individual’s unique set of characteristics and current challenges.Craft unique roles that amplify each individual’s strengths and motivations. Promote people only to roles in which they can succeed.

Unlocking People’s Potential  

<ul><li>Find a secret and build your career or organization around it, searching via customer development for product/market fit (or another “fit” relevant to the situation).</li><li>Strive to be like a heat-seeking missile in your search for product/market fit, deftly navigating the idea maze. Look for signs of hitting a resonant frequency for validation.</li><li>If you can’t find any bright spots in what you’re doing after some time, critically evaluate your position and consider a pivot.</li></ul>

Flex Your Market Power

Super Thinking is about the frameworks and shortcuts top performers rely on the cut through complexity and separate good ideas from bad ones.

A WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER! "You can't really know anything if you just remember isolated facts. If the facts don't hang together on a latticework of theory, you don't have them in a usable form. You've got to have models in your head." - Charlie Munger, investor, vice chairman of Berkshire Hathaway The world's greatest problem-solvers, forecasters, and decision-makers all rely on a set of frameworks and shortcuts that help them cut through complexity and separate good ideas from bad ones. They're called mental models, and you can find them in dense textbooks on psychology, physics, economics, and more. Or, you can just read Super Thinking, a fun, illustrated guide to every mental model you could possibly need. How can mental models help you? Well, here are just a few examples... • If you've ever been overwhelmed by a to-do list that's grown too long, maybe you need the Eisenhower Decision Matrix to help you prioritize. • Use the 5 Whys model to better understand people's motivations or get to the root cause of a problem. • Before concluding that your colleague who messes up your projects is out to sabotage you, consider Hanlon's Razor for an alternative explanation. • Ever sat through a bad movie just because you paid a lot for the ticket? You might be falling prey to Sunk Cost Fallacy. • Set up Forcing Functions, like standing meeting or deadlines, to help grease the wheels for changes you want to occur. So, the next time you find yourself faced with a difficult decision or just trying to understand a complex situation, let Super Thinking upgrade your brain with mental models.

Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models

<ul><li>Your second brain is a trusted place outside your head to preserve and protect your most valuable knowledge.</li><li>Digital notes apps are the centrepiece of your Second Brain.</li><li>You don't choose the right app - a notes app chooses you.</li><li>Try to force yourself to use a piece of software that isn't compatible with your temperament, style, and personality.</li></ul>

Your Second Brain

There are four common styles of notetaking:
<ul>
<li>The Architect: Building Systems. Architects want to fit all their information into an all-encompassing "ultimate system" with a clear hierarchy.</li>
<li>The Gardener: Cultivating. Think in a bottom-up way, cultivating many kinds of ideas and possibilities at the same time.</li>
<li>The Librarian: Researching for Projects. Librarians value books and ideas for their own sake but also seeking to organize information for specific purposes.</li>
<li>The Student: Acquiring Knowledge. The Student is the most common kind of notetaker.</li>
</ul>

The Four Notetaking Styles

<ul><li>Which of the above descriptions most resonated with your approach to taking notes? Which one felt the most natural and familiar</li><li>As your confidence builds you can always learn to master the other styles as well.</li><li>Choose a notes app that aligns with how your brain works.</li></ul>

How to think for yourself | Psyche Guides

Creative Problem Solving: from complex challenge to innovative solution

Rationality

Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models

The 4 Notetaking Styles: How to Choose a Digital Notes App as Your Second Brain - Forte Labs

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