Psychology of Decision Making &
Productivity
Articles that question conventional wisdom, work through paradoxes, and help you decide better.
The Inversion Mental Model: Solve Hard Problems by Working Backwards
Instead of asking how to succeed, ask what would guarantee failure, then avoid it. Where inversion comes from (Jacobi, Munger, Wald's bombers), the research on premortems and subtraction, and how to use it on your next decision.
The Circle of Competence: Why Smart People Fail Outside Their Field
Linus Pauling won two Nobel Prizes and still went badly wrong on vitamin C. The circle of competence explains why expertise doesn't transfer, why the edge of your knowledge is so hard to see, and how to find it.
The Marshmallow Test, Revisited: What Self-Control Research Really Shows
A larger 2018 replication found the marshmallow test predicts far less than the famous story claimed, and the "willpower as fuel" theory failed its own replications. What holds up: people with good self-control mostly avoid temptation rather than resist it.
Charlie Munger's Mental Models, Explained
Munger's "latticework" of mental models: inversion, circle of competence, incentives, opportunity cost, margin of safety and the Lollapalooza effect. Where each comes from, what the research says, and how to use them on ordinary decisions.
Why Experts Are Often Wrong, and How to Get Better Advice From Them
Experts can give bad advice without being frauds. The curse of knowledge, confidence that outruns accuracy and incentives that bend advice are all well documented. When to trust expertise, and the questions that check it.
Overthinking Is a Habit, Not a Personality. Here's How to Break It.
Overthinking behaves like a habit: it has triggers, it keeps itself going, and it can be interrupted. What rumination is, why a sharp verbal mind can make it worse, and six interrupts with evidence behind them.
12 Cognitive Biases Costing You Money, and a Check for Each
Loss aversion, anchoring, present bias, the framing effect and eight more. The research behind each bias, how it shows up in your spending and investing, and a specific check that counters it.
Why Your Brain Is Bad at Predicting the Future
The planning fallacy, the impact bias and projection bias: three predictable ways we misjudge time, feelings and our future selves. The research behind each, and three checks that correct for them.
12 Psychological Tricks That Actually Work, and How to Spot Them
Reciprocity, anchoring, social proof, foot-in-the-door and eight more documented effects, each with the study behind it and how to catch it being used on you. Plus four tricks worth using on yourself, and the famous ones that failed replication.
Does AI Make You Dumber? What the Research Shows So Far
Early studies point one way: when AI does your thinking, you learn less and often feel you learned more. What the evidence does and doesn't show, and the habits that keep your judgment in the loop.
Human-AI Collaboration: When Centaur Thinking Works, and When It Doesn't
A 2024 meta-analysis found human-AI teams did worse on average than the better of the two alone. Where the centaur idea comes from, what the research says about when pairing helps, and a four-step loop that keeps your judgment in charge.
The Sunk Cost Fallacy: Why We Stay Too Long
Money and time already spent are gone whatever you decide, yet they keep steering decisions. Sunk cost fallacy examples from careers, projects and relationships, the research behind the pull, and a two-step way out.
The 70% Rule: How to Beat Analysis Paralysis and Decide Faster
Past a certain point, more information raises confidence without raising accuracy. Jeff Bezos's 70% rule, the research on when to stop gathering facts, and how to tell which decisions deserve long deliberation.
The Ship of Theseus: What an Ancient Paradox Says About Identity
If every plank is replaced, is it the same ship? The paradox, Hobbes's twist, and what psychology has found about how people judge identity, from the "end of history illusion" to why moral character matters most.
Why Smart People Make Dumb Decisions
For many classic biases, intelligence offers little protection. What it changes is the story afterwards: smart people build better arguments for conclusions they reached for ordinary reasons. The research, and what actually helps.
The Veil of Ignorance: Rawls's Thought Experiment, Explained
If you didn't know who you'd be born as, what rules would you choose? Rawls's veil of ignorance, maximin in plain terms, Harsanyi's objection, what experiments with real groups found, and a free simulator to try it.
Bayesian Thinking: How to Update Your Beliefs
Treat beliefs as estimates, not possessions, and move them by as much as the evidence warrants. Bayes' theorem without the maths, the screening test most doctors get wrong, and three habits for daily life.
The Cobra Effect: When the Fix Makes the Problem Worse
Perverse incentives can make a solution feed the problem it targets. The famous Delhi story is probably a parable, but the pattern is well documented, from the Hanoi rat bounty to Wells Fargo's sales targets. How to spot it before it bites.
When to Quit: Strategic Quitting as a Decision Skill
Research suggests we tend to stay too long, not quit too soon. Three questions, the warning signs, and how to set "kill criteria" in advance so the decision to stop isn't made under the weight of everything you've spent.
High IQ Problems: The Real Downsides of Intelligence
High intelligence is mostly an advantage. Its real downsides are narrower: it helps you argue your own side more than see the other, it can feed overthinking, and it pulls towards analysis when a situation needs something else.
Too Many Choices: When Fewer Options Really Help
Choice overload is real, but only under specific conditions: similar options, unclear preferences, a hard task. What the jam study and its replications show, what decision fatigue research does and doesn't support, and how to choose faster.
Reversible vs Irreversible Decisions: The Two-Way Door Rule
Jeff Bezos's one-way and two-way doors tell you how much process a decision deserves. How to tell them apart, how to handle each, and the research showing that keeping a choice reversible can make you like it less.
False Dilemmas: How to Escape Binary Thinking and Find the Third Option
Most hard decisions arrive framed as A or B, and "whether or not" decisions fail more often. How to spot a false dilemma, find the assumption both options share, and add the option most often forgotten.
Why Being Wrong Makes You Smarter
The brain learns from prediction errors, and confident mistakes, once corrected, stick best. The research on learning from being wrong, its limits, and how to shorten the loop from mistake to update.
Flipping a Coin: The Surprising Science of Decision Making
In Steven Levitt's study, people a coin nudged into making a change were happier six months later. Why close calls deserve less analysis, how a coin's result reveals what you were hoping for, and when not to flip.
Does Multitasking Make You Smarter? What the Research Actually Shows
Multitasking makes almost everyone worse, and 'supertaskers' are rare, not trained. But switching away from a stuck problem on purpose really does help. Here's the difference.