Thought Stack: Design Principles, Mental Models, Cognitive Biases

How do we know when we should put in the effort to make the best choice, product, or decision, versus picking something that is simply "good enough?"

The answer is the mental model of maximizing vs. satisficing.

In The Paradox of Choice, Barry Schwartz notes that as our options for every aspect of our lives have increased, so has the cognitive load of making decisions in everyday life.

It wasn't hard to choose a shampoo 100 years ago — there were probably 5 brands. Now, you have an aisle of 100+ options to choose from. If you're a maximizer at heart (like me), this abundance of choice will prompt you to spend a great deal of time evaluating the best shampoo for you.

Learn how to switch from over-analyzing all of your life decisions, which wastes mental energy, by satisficing those that aren't critical to your happiness.

Read the complimentary article at ThoughtStack.co.

I remember reading Othello back in high school…

It was bound in a bright blue paperback sleeve with the word "Sparknotes" written above the title.

I know. Sparknotes isn't the same thing as reading the book. But I was young and at that time, Shakespeare didn't interest me the way Final Fantasy VII did.

Imagine my relief when I heard that our guest for today's podcast — Roy Lotz, one of the top reviewers on Goodreads — also wasn't into reading back in the day, I felt relieved. He's since found a love of reading and has read over 550 books...cover to cover.

He writes some of the best book reviews on Goodreads, which made me ask the question, "How can a guy go from reading Sparknotes in high school to reading 500+ books and becoming an amazing writer?"

I decided to reach out to him. Thankfully, Roy took some time to talk with me.

Here's what I learned.

I was biking to the grocery store a few days ago. As I was pedaling along happily, a bright-red car door materialized in front of my face…

I swerved. I almost fell off my bike but was able to recover. As soon as I was stabilized, I looked back to yell at the man who'd opened the car door and almost killed me.

"What a @#$%ing dick," I muttered to myself as I pedaled into the parking lot of the grocery store. In that moment, this man was clearly an asshole.

Or was he?

As I walked through the grocery aisles, I realized that I'd failed to apply Hanlon's Razor to the situation:

"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

Read the full article at Thoughtstack.co.

I'm ashamed to admit it, but I used to despise people who planned.

I felt they were missing out on life's beauty by being so regimented in their routines.

I was mistaken.

It wasn't until I read Work the System that I realized I had it backwards. By planning, you think through the way you want your life to go. After you plan, you have an opportunity to be truly spontaneous instead of having it thrust upon you.

The spontaneity of missing a flight on your honeymoon because you didn't plan for traffic isn't a fun experience. Neither is the spontaneity of missing the gym for the 3rd week in a row because you're "too busy."

Spontaneity is great, as long as you plan for it.

Find out the reasons your goals won't succeed without designing and implementing proper systems.

Learn how by reading the full article here.

Tilt is a poker term for a state of mental or emotional confusion or frustration in which a player adopts a less than optimal strategy, usually resulting in the player becoming over-aggressive. – Wikipedia

Tilting usually occurs when you get an outcome that you did not want or expect – for instance, losing an all-in with AA, the best pre-flop hand in No-Limit Texas Hold'Em. Statistically, you win that about 80% of the time, so the 20% of times that you do end up losing the hand can become emotionally frustrating.

One of my favorite quotes about tilt comes from Gigabet, an old poster on an old poker forum that I used to frequent:

"Everyone will eventually run worse [have worse luck] than they thought was possible. The difference between a winner and a loser is the latter thinks he doesn't deserve it."

Read the full article here.

We're far less important than we think we are. 

And yet...

Everything had to work out exactly the way it did for us to come into existence. 

The Milky Way had to form ~12.21 billion years ago and the Earth had to form ~4.43 billion years ago. Our species, Homo sapiens, had to survive countless threats to pop up ~160,000 years ago, which is but a minor blip on the vast cosmic timeline.

What makes us significant is that we're the first species to realize all of this.

That's what makes us matter — we're the species that was curious enough to ask questions and develop cognitive tools to help discover the answers.

Today's Actionable Book Short is on A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

For the corresponding article, be sure to read it on our site.

Stay Thought-Full.

We differ in how we see the world because we grew up differently.  

Since we are a product of our individual experiences, any new information presented to us has to pass through our individual mental filter.

Today's Mental Monday, we're covering Confirmation Bias.

Our brains evolved to be able to make quick decisions based on information that's available to us. To be quick, we have to fill in the gaps with our beliefs, assumptions, and experiences that helped us get to where we are in life.

And therein lies the problem. We favor viewpoints that helped us get to where we are, even if they aren't right.  We also HATE changing them…

We'd much rather keep things comfortable and the same.  It's this wishful thinking for stability that makes any new information that disagrees with us fall on our mind's deaf ears.

Make sure you never miss an episode by signing up for my Weekly Thought-Full Newsletter.