018 | Mental Models 1: How To Have Better Ideas and Improve Your Thinking

This is part 1 of a new series on Mental Models - tips, tricks, and tools to add to your mental toolbox. In this episode we introduce the concept of a mental model but then quickly dive in to explanations of the most powerful models we’ve encountered. Join us and learn how to make better decisions (or know when a decision is not worth making), how to have more original and impactful ideas (and how to find the most promising ideas to work on out of the thousands you’ll soon have), and when tidying up your messy desk is just plain wrong (sorry, Marie Kondo!)

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Shownotes:

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The Great Mental Models: General Thinking Concepts by Shane Parrish - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44245196-the-great-mental-models 

Super Thinking: The Big Book of Mental Models by Gabriel Weinberg - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41181911-super-thinking 

Feynman technique - https://fs.blog/2012/04/feynman-technique/ 

More Dakka by The Zvi - https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/z8usYeKX7dtTWsEnk/more-dakka 

Least recently used idea: read the book Algorithms To Live By by Brian Christian - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25666050-algorithms-to-live-by 

Eisenhower matrix - https://jamesclear.com/eisenhower-box 

Josh Wolfe on Shane Parrish’s podcast - https://fs.blog/josh-wolfe/ 

Eliezer Yudkowsky’s marvelous introduction to Bayes Theorem. Seriously, read this: http://yudkowsky.net/rational/bayes 

Tim Urban’s WaitButWhy post on thinking from first principles like Elon Musk: https://waitbutwhy.com/2015/11/the-cook-and-the-chef-musks-secret-sauce.html 

Deep Work by Cal Newport - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25744928-deep-work 

So Good They Can’t Ignore You by Cal Newport - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13525945-so-good-they-can-t-ignore-you 

Keep Your Identity Small by Paul Graham - http://www.paulgraham.com/identity.html 

Joscha Bach on the Singularity podcast: https://www.singularityweblog.com/joscha-bach/