Actively learn and internalize mental models from various disciplines to improve strategic thinking and decision-making, as specialization can limit your educational breadth.
Avoid absolute commitment to a decision or belief; instead, acknowledge you are “leaning a certain way” but remain open to entertaining other evidence to foster freer thinking and avoid confirmation bias.
Actively question your own assumptions and be open to others calling you out on biases, as it is difficult to overcome cognitive biases on your own.
Regularly engage in critical discussions with a trusted partner (e.g., spouse) about work, current events, and mental models, allowing them to challenge your thinking and vice versa.
Frame decisions by considering opportunity cost, evaluating if a choice is not just important, but more important than all other available options, especially when allocating time.
Create forcing functions, such as scheduled meetings or deadlines, to compel critical thinking, compilation of information, or consistent action (e.g., weekly one-on-ones, project updates, gym time).
For every task, project, or objective, assign a single Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) to avoid diffusion of responsibility and ensure accountability.
Before proceeding with a task, write down your plan and share it, inviting others to object or offer ideas, allowing for feedback without stopping progress and leveraging collective intelligence.
Before starting a project, write out all reasoning and discuss it to question assumptions, explore simpler or more efficient alternatives, and decide if the project should be done at all.
Consider reducing or quitting social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram, as research suggests it can lead to positive effects such as feeling less isolated and lonely, and reducing exposure to negativity.
Understand that hyper-targeted and A/B tested ads on social media can be manipulative, designed to trigger emotional responses and influence purchasing decisions, effectively costing you money.
Choose products and services like DuckDuckGo or Apple that are designed to help you avoid corporate and government surveillance.
Download the DuckDuckGo browser or browser extension on iOS, Android, Chrome, or Firefox to get essential tools for private search, tracker blocking, and encryption.
Visit spreadprivacy.com for device-specific tips to change settings on your laptop, desktop, or phone to enhance your general privacy.
Move your email off of services like Gmail to more private alternatives such as ProtonMail or FastMail to separate your data and avoid putting all your eggs in one basket.
Request removal of your personal information from “people search” sites, either through paid services or by finding lists that allow direct removal requests.
Use search engines like DuckDuckGo that do not have a filter bubble, ensuring you see the same results as others for a given topic and avoid biased information.
Opt for contextual advertising, which is based on page content rather than user history, as it avoids privacy issues like manipulation and filter bubbles, and has shown to increase revenue in some cases.
Remove Facebook tracking pixels from your website to prevent data from leaking beyond your intended use and stop others from targeting your audience.
Allow search engines like DuckDuckGo to use your location for hyperlocal queries, provided they immediately discard the data without storing any location history.
Schedule weekly, unstructured one-on-one meetings with a career advisor or manager, where the advisee leads the agenda, as a forcing function to reflect on current issues and priorities.
Implement a weekly project summary update, detailing “what happened” and “what’s next,” as a forcing function to encourage critical thinking about project progress.
Hold kickoff calls and post-mortems (or pre-mortems/mid-mortems) for every project as forcing functions to ensure critical thinking at various stages.
To have an engaging and productive debate, break down the argument into its underlying premises to identify the specific point of disagreement.
Listen to structured debate podcasts like “Intelligence Squared” to engage with complex topics, hear multiple perspectives from experts, and observe civil discourse, even with children.
Listen to and discuss adult-oriented current events podcasts (e.g., The Daily) with children, pausing to ask questions about comprehension, motivations, options, and multiple perspectives.
Watch movies with children and discuss them in depth, using the high production value and complexity of good films as an engaging way to talk about various topics.
Engage with children by focusing on their specific interests, such as programming or YouTube videos, and relate broader concepts and discussions back to those topics.
Utilize engaging educational content like “Crash Course” videos or podcasts, and discuss them with children to foster understanding and relate concepts back to their lives.
Foster resilience in children by allowing them to fail at tasks and encouraging them to try again until they succeed.
Visit fs.blog/podcast to learn more and stay up to date with The Knowledge Project podcast.
Subscribe to the free Brain Food newsletter at fs.blog/newsletter for weekly recommendations on articles, books, and quotes, providing “all signal, no noise.”
If contacting Metalab for your project, tell them Shane sent you to potentially leverage their unique design philosophy.