How People Make Big Decisions
We all go through psychological steps when we make big decisions. Some people call this the “existential cycle,” which really has four stages: doing, contemplating, preparing, and experimenting. ***...
View ArticleExternalities: Why We Can Never Do “One Thing”
No action exists in a vacuum. There are ripples that have consequences that we can and can’t see. Here are the three types of externalities that can help us guide our actions so they don’t come back to...
View ArticleChesterton’s Fence: A Lesson in Second Order Thinking
A core component of making great decisions is understanding the rationale behind previous decisions. If we don’t understand how we got “here,” we run the risk of making things much worse. *** When we...
View ArticlePreserving Optionality: Preparing for the Unknown
We’re often advised to excel at one thing. But as the future gets harder to predict, preserving optionality allows us to pivot when the road ahead crumbles. *** How do we prepare for a world that often...
View ArticleWhy We Focus on Trivial Things: The Bikeshed Effect
Bikeshedding is a metaphor to illustrate the strange tendency we have to spend excessive time on trivial matters, often glossing over important ones. Here’s why we do it, and how to stop. *** How can...
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