Mental Models I Find Repeatedly Useful
I'm only taking notes on the ones that seem interesting, useful, etc.
A mental model is a concept used to explain things. (Hanlon's Razor — never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by carelessness).
This is intended as an overview, further study is recommended
Explaining
Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by carelessness
Fundamental Attribution Error: Assuming other people are acting because they have a personality trait (he is selfish, he is a villain, she is bad) instead of circumstance (she got stuck in traffic), especially when compared to ourselves (I got stuck in traffic, he is disrepsectful).
Occam's Razor: Go with the fewest assumptions
"When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras"
First principles, and arguing from
Root cause vs proximate cause (and 5 whys)
Modeling
Counterfactual thinking: what if, if only
Systems thinking: looking at the parts and the systems as a whole
Skate to where the puck is going
Power law / pareto: 80% of effects from 20% of causes (similar with online posting)
Long tail distributions
Queueing Theory and process optimization
One line is better than 6 small lines (see self checkout vs aisles)
Parking garages: why do they let people in to circle the whole thing when it's closed? Some now have signs at the front that say # of open spots
Minimize waiting makes customers happy
See what restaurants have waiting: not upscale ones, they respect their customers' time. Not lowscale ones, they optimize throughput and speed and jamming. Just the middle-class restaurants (your Applebees, your cheesecake factory) and so on. (source)
Physics
Critical mass: number of adopters needed so that adoption becomes self-sustaining and creates further growth. See also coordination problems.
Inertia and habit (see Twitter's slow death ~2023)
Brainstorming
Lateral thinking: indirect approach, rather than step-by-step
Divergent thinking: looking at many different approaches instead of convergent thinking. See also "if all you have is a hammer..."
Experimenting
Proxy: variable that isn't directly relevant, but is easy to measure and closely correlated with what we care about.
Selection bias: accidentally getting a non-representative sampling and over-estimating. Most people who buy RPGs are GMs, most people who play them are not.
Survivorship bias
Interpreting
Order of magnitude approximations, back of envelope calculations
Second order / knock-on effects
Regression to the mean (a very tall woman will likely have a child shorter than her)
Inflection point, where the derivative is zero and the slope changes from positive to negative (or vice-versa)
Deciding
Business case for doing a choice or projece
Opportunity cost
Intuiting
Local vs global optimum
Sunk cost
Availability bias
HIPPO: Higher paid person's opinion (if we don't have data, take an opinion and it might as well be mine)
Loss aversion: people prefer avoiding losses to acquiring gains
Reasoning and arguing
Causation / Correlation: relationships don't imply causes
Anecdotes are not data
Strawman / steelman
Plausible vs true (and possible vs likely — see also zebras vs horses)
Black and White vs shades of gray
Negotiating
The Third Story — a version of events that both sides can agree on, one that an impartial observer would tell.
Active listening
Trade-offs!
Incentives carrots and sticks
BATNA (best alternative to negotiated agreement). What are you going to take if we don't reach an agreement?
Most respectful interpretation: assume the best of others. Always assume the best, kindest, most helpful interpretation of every communication and respond only to that version. They cut me off because they didn't see me and really need to pee.
Be forgiving! (source)
Zero-sum vs non-zero sum. Can we get a win-win? Does my success mean your failure, and vice-versa?
Goodhart’s law — “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure”
Short-termism: focusing on short term results instead of long-term interests
Managing
Weekly 1:1s
Forcing functions: an activity or task that forces a certain result or action (see shrinking zone in Fortnite)
Pygmalion Effect — “The phenomenon whereby higher expectations lead to an increase in performance.”
Growth Mindset: it's not failure, it's learning opportunity. Invest and study!
Tech debt
Generalist vs specialist (hedgehog / fox — fox knows many things, hedgehog knows one important thing)
Consequence vs conviction and when to delegate. Low consequence + low confidence = delegate, and delegate COMPLETELY. If you have high confidence and there are high consequences, do it yourself.
High context vs low context culture. High context leaves things unsaid and implied. Words are important, since there's subtext that in-groups pick up. In low context cultures, communicators need to be more explicit, and specific words matter less.
Loyalists vs mercenaries.
Developing
Metcalfe's Law: value of a (social) network is proportional to the square of the number of users.
Business
MVP (minimum viable product). Perfect is the enemy of good, get out of the building. Fast is good. etc.
Reversible vs irreversible decisions (launching a product, firing someone, 5-year lease.)
Open vs closed platform
When you do something you’re excited about you will naturally pull others into your orbit. And the more people with whom you share your passion, the more who will be pulled into your orbit.
Hunting whales vs fish
Influencing
Same information as a base, the frame surrounding the issue can change the reader's perception without changing facts. See Courtney and prom. Related, anchoring.
Reciprocity, people like to return favors.
Commitment: people honor commitments
Social proof: if others do it visibly, they will do
Authority: people obey authority
Liking: people you like are more persuasive (heartbreaking: worst person you know made an excellent point)
Scarcity: perceived scarcity generates demand (see also foot-in-the-door)
Eliminating choices removes analysis paralysis (and customer anxiety). See also Hick's Law: increasing number of choices increases decision time logarithmically.
Marketing
Funnel theory and audience. Don't get the most people in the top, get the right people in the top. A small narrow funnel that lets in 80% of a smaller audience is better than a wide shallow funnel that lets in 2% of a huge audience.
If taylor swift retweets your RPG, it's less effective than if John Harper or Matt Mercer does.
Customers by tools to do a particular job at the time it needs doing.
Competing
Barriers to market. These help established people not get swamped by newcomers.
First-mover advantage / disadvantage. Why now?
Strategizing
Core competency. Don't need to be an expert everywhere just being able to evaluate your circle of competence. Knowing the boundaries of the circle is more important than the size of it.
Sphere of influence
Unknown unknowns
Switching costs (suppliers, efforts)
Network effect: value of a service is dependent on the number of others using it (see "Oh my word" game, ~2023 (users have a partial crossword and have to pick words. Unique words are rewarded, conflicts are punished with lower scores))
Economies of scale
Military
Flypaper: draw enemies to one area before engaging
Fighting the last war: using outdated strategies
You go with the army you have.
Plans are worthless, planning is everything.
Empty fort strategy: convincing opponents that your empty fort is full of traps so they don't attack.
Exit strategy
Appeasement: concession to avoid conflict
Winning battle, losing war.
Sports
Unforced error, own-goal
Hail Mary pass
Market failure
Externalities: costs that affect people who did not choose to incur that cost
Moral hazard: people taking more risks when they don't bear the cost of those risks
Tragedy of the commons
Free rider problem: people benefit from goods are services they don't pare for, which results in not enough of those goods or services
NIMBY (not in my backyard)
Peak oil: theoretical point where you can't make any more, must decline.
Political failure
Third rail: a hot button issue that it's best to not touch.
Chilling effect: threat of sanction or legal effects can cause a measurable decrease in corresponding behavior (see Xbox warning about private flights -> leaving preview program)
Shirky principle: institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution. The guy selling bear spray to hikers really wants there to be an occasional bear attack!
"Sunlight is the best disinfectant"
Regulatory capture: serving a special interest group instead of society at large.
Approval voting
Investing
FOMO (fear of misisng out)
investing vs speculation
Compound interest
Poison pill, allowing other shareholders to buy a bunch of stock at a discount if one other person acquires a certain percent. Used to stop hostile takeovers. See also proxy war.
Learning
Deliberate practice. 10,000 hours
Imposter syndrome
Dunning-kruger effect. Unskilled people think their ability is much higher than reality, skilled people know what they don't know and underestimate themselves (or assume that tasks easy for them are also easy for others)
Gell-Mann Amnesia effect: see an article in a newspaper you know a lot about, realize it's bunk. Read another article about something you don't know anything about and assume it's reliable.
Spacing effect: study the same thing over time, not all at once. Better results
Productivity
Eisenhower decision matrix: important / urgent
If it takes less than 2 minutes, do it now
High leverage activities. Focus on the things that matter.
Automate your work, publish original context. Master a critical tool. Energy multipliers
A partner at a law firm I worked for was on a conference call.
While his first child was being born.
When asked around the office if it was true, he’d say, “You betcha!” with a proud smile.
And in a way, his pride was not unwarranted.He was the kind of person who’d answer emails anytime. Whether it was 1, 3, or 5 in the morning, he’d reply within minutes.
There was an air of mystique about him, as if he were some ghost or machine that required neither sleep nor rest and could go on working endlessly.
He brought in big clients and at least according to company culture, he was the best lawyer you could imagine.But what was it like for his wife to be alone during the most important time of their life? Or for the baby who would grow up with an absent father figure?
And how long could he sustain that manic pace before his nervous system shut down?
Now, if I come into work and see that a team member was on Slack in the middle of the night, I pull them aside for a chat.
“Your wellbeing is more important to me than pushing ahead by a few hours,” I say.
Because human beings are not machines.
And a company that puts self-sacrifice before self-care is a sick company.
Bikeshedding: spending your time arguing about trivial details (like the color of a bike shed) instead of what matters, because it's easier to comprehend.
Maker vs manager's schedule. See also Deep Work.
Hofstadter's Law: it always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's law.
The first 90% of a project takes the first 90% of the time. The last 10% of a project takes the second 90% of the time.
Parkinson's Law: work expands to fill the time available for its completion
Gates Law: most people overestimate what they can do in a year and underestimate what they can do in 10 years. Related: most people overestimate what they can do in a day, and underestimate what they can do in a year. See also moving the chains.
Nature
Chain reaction
Flowing from where it is to where it isn't. Filling a vacuum, esp power vacuum.
Philosophy
Ends justify the means
Internet
Filter bubble / echo chamber. Algorithm guesses what a user wants to see based on information (past clicks, search history, location) and only shows them what they already agree with.