“Multitasking, in short, is not only not thinking, it impairs your ability to think. Thinking means concentrating on one thing long enough to develop an idea about it. Not learning other people’s ideas, or memorizing a body of information, however much those may sometimes be useful. Developing your own ideas. In short, thinking for yourself. You simply cannot do that in bursts of 20 seconds at a time, constantly interrupted by Facebook messages or Twitter tweets, or fiddling with your iPod, or watching something on YouTube.
I find for myself that my first thought is never my best thought. My first thought is always someone else’s; it’s always what I’ve already heard about the subject, always the conventional wisdom. It’s only by concentrating, sticking to the question, being patient, letting all the parts of my mind come into play, that I arrive at an original idea. By giving my brain a chance to make associations, draw connections, take me by surprise. And often even that idea doesn’t turn out to be very good. I need time to think about it, too, to make mistakes and recognize them, to make false starts and correct them, to outlast my impulses, to defeat my desire to declare the job done and move on to the next thing”
The Shirky Principle
The Shirky Principle: “Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution”
Observation in Science (Wikipedia)
The scientific method requires observations of natural phenomena to formulate and test hypotheses. It consists of the following steps:[
- Ask a question about a natural phenomenon
- Make observations of the phenomenon
- Form a hypothesis to explain the phenomenon
- Predict logical, observable consequences of the hypothesis that have not yet been investigated
- Test the hypothesis’ predictions by an experiment, observational study, field study, or simulation
- Draw a conclusion from data gathered in the experiment, or revise the hypothesis or form a new one and repeat the process
- Write a descriptive method of observation and the results or conclusions reached
- Have peers with experience researching the same phenomenon evaluate the results
Taylor Pearson on Procrastination
Taylor Pearson really has become a fine essayist. This one on procrastination was packed with wisdom:
“Whenever you feel that some situation or some person is ruining your life, it is actually you who are ruining your life… feeling like a victim is a perfectly disastrous way to go through life. If you just take the attitude that however bad it is in any way, it’s always your fault and you just fix it as best you canâ – the so-called “iron prescription” – I think that really works.” Charlie Munger
In his letter to shareholders back in 2016, Jeff Bezos gave the best advice I’ve ever heard on how to stop procrastinating:
“Most decisions should probably be made with somewhere around 70% of the information you wish you had. If you wait for 90%, in most cases, you’re probably being slow. Plus, either way, you need to be good at quickly recognizing and correcting bad decisions. If you’re good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think, whereas being slow is going to be expensive for sure.”
What Bezos is saying is that you should think like a C student. When you’re about 70% sure, you take a guess and see what happens.
Colin Powell has a similar rule for how to stop procrastinating. You should make a decision when you have between 40% and 70% of the possible information. He believes that with less than that, you are bound to make a wrong decision.
However, if you keep looking for information beyond 70%, then by the time you make the decision, it will be so late that you will have missed the opportunity.
…Use the formula P=40 to 70, in which P stands for the probability of success and the numbers indicate the percentage of information acquired…Once the information is in the 40 to 70 range, go with your gut.
…Courage is the Cure for Procrastination
In his account of an expedition into the Himalayas in the 1930’s, explorer William Hutchison Murray put it this way:
“… but when I said that nothing had been done I erred in one important matter. We had definitely committed ourselves and were halfway out of our ruts. We had put down our passage money — booked a sailing to Bombay. This may sound too simple, but is great in consequence. Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.”
William Hutchinson Murray, The Scottish Himalayan Expedition (1951)
Ryan Holiday on High Agency People
The mathematician and economist Eric Weinstein, has a category of individual he defines as a “high agency person”. As Eric would elaborate on Tim Ferriss’ podcast:
“When you’re told that something is impossible, is that the end of the conversation, or does that start a second dialogue in your mind, how to get around whoever it is that’s just told you that you can’t do something? So, how am I going to get past this bouncer who told me that I can’t come into this nightclub? How am I going to start a business when my credit is terrible and I have no experience?”
It was Steve Jobs who once said that, “Life can be much broader once you discover one simple fact: Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.”
Once you learn this, he said, you’ll never be the same again.
People have spoken of Jobs’ “reality distortion field” and this is really what it was. He believed more in his own agency – his own power to change and affect things – than he did in conventional wisdom or other people”s opinions.
But this idea of agency is a controversial one today. Most of discourse is marked with shibboleths that reveal our doubts about agency. We speak of privileges and systemic biases. We talk of our problems as if they are intractable, overwhelming and malevolently created. Even on the extreme right, there is an obsession with biological differences between sexes and races, about whether one gender or another is naturally better at this or that. Again, these are simply averages that have nothing to do with individuals. Our focus on it all, from either side, is a way of subtly erasing agency. We emphasise where we are disempowered rather than opportunities for empowerment.
The line from Hannibal when he was told that crossing the Alps was impossible: Aut inveniam viam aut faciam. I shall either find a way or make one.
This is what high agency individuals do. This is how they respond to bad odds, to big doubts, or frustrating situations.
“You must accept the truth from whatever source it comes.”
-Maimonides, aka Rabbi Moses ben Maimon (1135–1204), also said: “Teach thy tongue to say I do not know, and thou shalt progress.”
Learn, Build, Share, Repeat
“In my office, on a wall converted to a massive whiteboard, I’ve written “Learn, Build, Share, Repeat” in large letters. I think of this as both a mission and as an operating manual.
“Learn” means always keep pushing to understand what you don’t already know, because as Isaac Asimov wrote, past glories are poor feeding. The moment you feel like you’ve won, or that you’ve got it all figured out, you are dead.
“Build” is a forcing function. Words like “write,” “create,” or “teach” work here as well. If you force yourself to transform what you’ve learned into something that is your own, then you’ve really learned. You’ve also made something that can serve others.
“Share” means connection. Sharing openly and transparently creates a feedback loop which accelerates learning and improves whatever it is you are building. It also creates a community of like-minded people with similar values and curiosities.
“Repeat” emphasizes that this is a game which is never complete. This isn’t about accomplishments, goals, or endpoints. It is a romance with the process itself.
– Patrick O’Shaughnessy in his “Investor Field Guide” newsletter
The Death of Expertise
In The Death of Expertise, ” Tom Nichols shows us why the surge in narcissistic and intellectual egalitarianism has crippled informed debates:
“All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism.”
