Farnam Street
Mastering the best of what other people have already figured out
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 …
The OODA Loop is a four-step process for making effective decisions in high-stakes situations. It involves collecting relevant information, recognizing potential biases, deciding, and acting, then …
Sometimes success is just about avoiding failure. At FS, we help people make better decisions without needing to rely on getting lucky. One aspect of decision-making that’s rarely talked about is how …
One big challenge we all face in life is knowing when to explore new opportunities, and when to double down on existing ones. Explore vs exploit algorithms – and poetry – teach us that …
Career changes are some of the biggest moves we will ever make, but they don’t have to be daunting. Using mental models to make decisions we determine where we want to go and how to get there. The …
The growing influence of algorithms on our lives means we owe it to ourselves to better understand what they are and how they work. Understanding how the data we use to inform algorithms influences …
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 …
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 …
We read for the same reasons we have conversations — to enrich our lives. Reading helps us to think, feel, and reflect — not only upon ourselves and others but upon our ideas, and our relationship …
The less rigid we are in our thinking, the more open minded, creative and innovative we become. Here’s how to develop the power of an elastic mind. *** Society is changing fast. Do we need to change …
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 …
“It wasn’t the best decision we could make,” said one of my old bosses, “but it was the most defensible.” What she meant was that she wanted to choose option A but ended up choosing option B because …
The decisions we spend the most time on are rarely the most important ones. Not all decisions need the same process. Sometimes, trying to impose the same process on all decisions leads to difficulty …
We’re taught single loop learning from the time we are in grade school, but there’s a better way. Double loop learning is the quickest and most efficient way to learn anything that you …
Making decisions, even in areas you know relatively well, usually involves an element of uncertainty. Sometimes decisions can be made quickly, and uncertainty is acceptable or desirable. Other times, …
What techniques do people use in the most extreme situations to make decisions? What can we learn from them to help us make more rational and quick decisions? If these techniques work in the most …