how-to-think-more-effectively.md

how-to-think-more-effectively.md

Summary:

Introduction:

• Sometimes we feel creative, other times dull and boring. We feel / act as if this is out of our control.
• Effective thinking is about learning to spot, nuture and grow our fleeting periods on insight.

Chapter 1: Strategic thinking

• Brain is more biased towards execution than strategy. We don't think closely about what actually matters.
• The present day society also incentivizes people to execute on predefined paths rather than asking big questions.
• We have had enough experiences in life (data) as to what things make us feel what way. But we don't process it.
• We should change our focus from execution to strategy.
• Mental manoeuvre:
  • Do 80-20 split for time on execution vs stragegy instead of 95-5.
  • Observe more closely the bias towards execution (before adequate scrutiny). Always ask "why is this important? and how does it connect to my broader goals"
  • Rewire your brain to not think of hard workers are superior and people who work less hours at a relaxed pace.
• To think more effectively, we need to have monsteries for our mind to enable it: right food, enough sleep, exercise, less distrctions, etc.

Chapter 2: Cummulative thinking

• Our mind doesn't get elaborate best thoughts in one go, it doesn't have a proper schedule.
• When we see other people thinking clearly, we feel they're naturally good at it. We don't see all the work that went behind it, and that it happened in bits and pieces over many months.
• We get discouraged when we try to think and realize how hard it is. But any of the biggest thinkers of the past are a results of many hours of thinking and refining their ideas.
• We have to endure a lot of delays before we can assemble our ideas into a logical sequence.
• Mental manoeuvre:
  • We need a notebook to keep track of our thoughts. Our working memory is not enough to contain all important ideas.
  • Ideas might connect over many many months. You might not see the connection to a lot of what you're writing early.
  • Having notes of thoughts before saying it can help us realize how much more work we have to do to be eloquent.
  • Surya: writing on paper is as good as having the conversation out loud. Just writing and refining ideas multiple times is good to enough make you eloquent.

Chapter 3: Butterfly thinking

• Truly precious ideas we have are hard to catch hold off when they come.
• You need to calm down and look for these butterflies in your mind. And grab hold of them.
• Thinking can often be interrupted by anxiety. Because executing on some of these ideas can make you an outlier.
• Thinking harder might not always help, we need to distract ourselves (with a walk in the nature). Being in a relaxed state, can bring up some of the interesting ideas.
• Mental Manoeuvre
  • Anxiety is the biggest hindrance to thinking.
  • It's not the office desk with a good view the best place to think, it can be more in the middle of a shower.
  • Spend more time thinking about how to line up the environment so that you'll get your best ideas.

Chapter 4: independent thinking

• The world has a pressure that we should pay respect to the biggest thinker in the past. We have the pressure to credit the ideas we have to someone else, with a prestigious name.
• Not all good ideas have already been had. Our minds are a good place to get ideas that no one has executed on before. We need to respect our brain, and believe that we already have enough experience to produce valuable insights.
• Don't assume that top ideas are far away in some ancient library. Your brain is producing great ideas all the time.
• If we're just aware enough, it's easy to come up with top ideas about life. We should stop being hesitant about letting them unroll.
• Genius vs normal person. A genius takes his thoughts more seriously. They mostly express ideas that we already have, but were modest and didn't dare enough to explore them more by ourselves.
• We kill most our most promising ideas because of a lack of confidence.

Chapter 5: focused thinking

• Our brain throws our ideas that are vague. We can make those ideas more precise by asking specific questions. (living an examined life)
• Many people think their thoughts are clear. But when they undergo further questions, they realize that they're vague. This comes to light only when we ask specific questions.
• Why do you like that film? Being unable to answer that question shows that we're not clear thinkers.
• Practice:
  • what do you find exciting? your initial answer would be general and vague.
  • chip away your vagueness with further questions.

Chapter 6: Philosophical meditation

• Spend time unrolling more about what makes you anxious. Three steps:
  • What am I anxious about? Give time to hear out even small possibility that's making you anxious. Order them so that your thinking get more clear. Imagine the worst case secnario and realize that it's not really that bad.
  • What am I presently upset about? Are we carry burden of various sorrows from the past?
  • What am I ambitious and excited about? Thinking about new directions you could take and the tension you feel about taking it. This excitement generally points to a good direction in which we can live more fulfilled life.
• Practice:
  • Anxiety: write about atleast 8 things you're anxious about. Feel the relief you feel from unpacking this anxiety. Ask yourself what steps you need to take? What do others need to do? What needs to happen when? Convert anxiety to a set of steps.
  • Upset: what specific activities upset you? What about these things bother you? If this happened to a friend, what would you say to them?
  • Exitement: make a list of things you're excited baout.

Chapter 7: Mad thinking

• Many of the greatest thoughts are mad. Only when we explore moments of mad thinking more extensively, can we get the great ideas. (eg. what would you do if money were no thing? what you do if you knew you wouldn't fail? what would you do if you were the ruler of the world? if fear were no thing, what would you do?)
• Great fictional novel (eg. 1984) are a result of mad thinking.
• To get to the great ideas, we'll have to pass through early notions of seemingly crazy ideas.

Chapter 8: Friend Thinking

• It's hard to think without distraction.
• Being a good listener helps the other person think more clearly.
• Be like Socrates in conversations, like a philosopher and ask them: why do you think this thing made you feel that way, does it have anything to do with the way you grew up?
• How to be a good listener:
  • listen intensely and ask them to explain things you find interesting in more detail
  • don't let the conversation steer off into rabbit holes but keeps the focus on the fundamental themes. "so ultimately, what do you think it was about?"
  • make confessions to give a sign to other people that it's okay.
  • you don't have to give sunny advice.
• Practice:
  • Try this with a friend.

Chapter 9: Reading thinking

• Reading is a way to acquire good ideas of other people. Reading triggers new ideas in your mind. We need to disagree with books.

Chapter 10: Envious thinking

• Envy can be a window to a deeper self knowledge.
• Practice: make a list -- people I envy, their achievements, the postiive bits I don't really want, the positive bits I want

Chapter 11: Analogical thinking

• Learning about one thing can generalize to novel scenarios (eg. politics and relationships, child growth and frog growth, lines on the palm and fissures on mars, etc.)

Chapter 12: Empathetic thinking

• Realize that how other people reacted would have been what you'd do in different situation. So they're just human, like you.
• It feels like famous actors, presidents, CEOs don't have the same feelings like we do. But they do.