Chesterton’s Fence: A Lesson in Thinking
Chesterton’s Fence is a principle that reminds us to look before we leap. To understand before we act. It’s a cautionary reminder to understand why something is the way it is before …
Decision Making
The OODA Loop: How Fighter Pilots Make Fast and Accurate Decisions
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 …
Avoiding Bad Decisions
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 …
Explore Or Exploit? How To Choose New Opportunities
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 …
Mental Models for Career Changes
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 …
A Primer on Algorithms and Bias
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 …
Why We Focus on Trivial Things: The Bikeshed Effect
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 …
Preserving Optionality: Preparing for the Unknown
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 …
The Best of Farnam Street 2019
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 …
Elastic: Flexible Thinking in a Constantly Changing World
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 …
Externalities: Why We Can Never Do “One Thing”
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 …
Defensive Decision Making: What IS Best vs. What LOOKS Best
“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 Decision Matrix: How to Prioritize What Matters
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 …
Double Loop Learning: Download New Skills and Information into Your Brain
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 …
Reversible and Irreversible Decisions
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, …
OODA LOOP: What You Can Learn from Fighter Pilots About Making Fast and Accurate Decisions
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 …