2024-02-21
- analysis paralysis: how much does this decision impact my happiness long term? Does what I read today affect my happiness tomorrow? Likely not. Move fast. Choose Netflix fast.
- Paralysis is trying to get certainty.
- Maximizing: trying to make the optimal decision.
- “What information would change your decision? What’s the cost to get it?”
- Pre-mortum: why did you fail?
- backcast: work backward from success and figure out what it took. Imagine you succeeded.
- Hedge: pay to mitigate the downside of a bad outcome.
- Pre-commitment barriers: dampen your emotional reaction
- Tilt:
- Dr. Evil -
- Category decisions:
2024-02-20
Steps in decisions:
Identify your goal. Where are you hoping a decision will take you? 1. Identify the reasonable set of outcomes. 2. Identify your preference for the outcomes. What degree do you like/dislike each outcome? Payoffs? (Emotional, financial, etc. ) 1. What’s the range? (I could be somewhat happy or happy, but not elated) 3. Likelihood of each outcome unfolding. Use terms like “not likely, very likely” 4. Assess the relative likelihood of outcomes you like and dislike for the option under consideration. 5. Repeat 1-4 for all options. 6. Compare options.
“If I were wrong, why might that be?” #IntrospectiveQuestion
“What information could I discover that might make me change my mind?” #IntrospectiveQuestion
“How shocked would I be if the outcome didn’t happen in the range I specified?” #IntrospectiveQuestion
Inside view vs outside view.
- inside:
- Outside: the advice others give you. Or what you’d say to someone in your position.
- Start with outside view and then move to the inside view.
- Being smart means you anchor more to the inside view than the outside view. But decision making is best at the intersection of inside and outside.
What is my best decision? Worst?
- resulting: focusing on outcomes, rather than expected values and doing the best
- to improve decision making: focus on what the process was for decision making. Information gathering. Question asking.
- Remember choosing to leave Novi, wondering if someone was going to be a millionaire in my absence. Couldn’t help but feel I was leaving money on the table by leaving. But I decided to leave to pursue what I was passionate about, and regardless that Novi went under I felt that was the right call as I finished my masters.
Actions: - make a knowledge tracker. Details on decisions. Info known before/after. Make this going forward
Decision process: - where do you want to go? - What are all the ways to get there? - By taking X choice, what are other ways it could go? What’s the probability?
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Bryan lives somewhere at the intersection of faith, fatherhood, and futurism and writes about tech, books, Christianity, gratitude, and whatever’s on his mind. If you liked reading, perhaps you’ll also like subscribing: