Big fat list of Mental Models
A large list of mental models
Table of Contents
Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions by Shane Parrish is a better list, and I simply refer to it now.
This is a collection of mental models I’ve read about. Makes for a good reference for the times I’m always stuck in Déjà vu, thinking “what’s the term?“. I will grow, evolve and categorize this list largely trying to understand / answer “what can I do to minimize negative externalities?”, a meta-mental model for decision making in life.
This is a fat list and the purpose is not to memorize these. Instead, consciously aiming to learn them, utilize them as much as possible to fit things happening around into a model. This is reductive and simplifying, but that is precisely what models are for - to allow us focus on things that matter without the unnecessary details.
We don’t become better at things we do – we become better at things we pay attention to while we’re doing them
Uncategorized List
- Inverse Thinking - be wrong less
- unforced errors
- antifragile - gain from disorder
- Arguing from first principles
- Minimum Viable Product
- de-risking - weed out untrue assumptions
- premature optimization
- Occam’s razor - as simple as it can be, but no simpler
- conjunction fallacy - latching on to unnecessary assumptions
- overfitting
- Frame of Reference
- framing
- nudging
- anchoring
- Availability Bias
- filter bubble
- echo chambers
- The Third Story
- most respectful interpretation - benefit of the doubt
- Hanlon’s razor - malice vs carelessness
- fundamental attribution error
- self-serving bias
- veil of ignorance
- Birth lottery
- just world hypothesis
- victim-blame
- learned helplessness
- Paradigm Shift
- Semmelweis reflex
- confirmation bias
- backfire effect
- disconfirmation bias
- cognitive dissonance
- thinking gray
- Devil’s advocate position
- Intuition
- proximate cause
- root cause
- optimistic probability bias
- Tyranny of small decisions - “death by a thousand cuts”
- tragedy of the commons
- public goods
- herd immunity
- Externalities (internalizing negative externalities)
- spillover effects
- Coase theorem - “property rights, rational actors, low transaction costs”
- cap-and-trade
- Asymmetric information
- Moral Hazard
- Principal-agent problem
- adverse selection
- Market failure
- government / political failure
- Goodhart’s law
- perverse incentives
- cobra effect
- Sreisand effect
- hydra effect
- Observer effect
- chilling effect
- collateral damage
- blowback
- Boiling frog
- short-termism
- technical debt
- path dependence
- Preserving optionality
- precautionary principle
- Hick’s law
- Information overload
- analysis paralysis
- perfect is the enemy of good
- reversible / irreversible decisions
- paradox of choice
- decision fatigue
- Murphy’s law
- North star
- Compound interest
- Two-front wars
- Multitasking
- deep work
- Eisenhower Decision Matrix
- Sayre’s Law
- Parkinson’s law of triviality
- bike-shedding
- Opportunity cost
- opportunity cost of capital
- best alternative to negotiated agreement
- Leverage
- Pareto principle
- power law distribution
- Learning curve effect
- Law of diminishing returns
- Law of diminishing utility
- negative returns
- burnout
- Present bias
- net present value
- hyperbolic discounting
- Default effect - path of least resistance
- Parkinson’s Law
- Hofstadter’s Law
- Loss aversion
- sunk-cost fallacy
- Design pattern
- anti-pattern
- brute force
- heuristic
- black boxes
- parallel processing
- divide and conquer
- Economies of scale
- Reframe the problem
- Natural selection
- Scientific method
- Inertia
- strategy tax
- Shirky principle
- Lindy effect
- Momentum
- catalyst
- forcing function
- activation energy
- flywheel
- Homeostasis
- Chatelier’s principle
- Hysteresis
- Critical mass
- tipping point
- chain reaction
- Technology adoption lifecycle - innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, laggards
- Metcalfe’s law
- network effects
- Butterfly effect
- luck surface area
- entropy
- Black-and-white fallacy
- in-group favoritism
- out-group bias
- zero-sum
- win-win
- Grass-is-greener mentality
- Maslow’s hammer
- Cost-benefit analysis
- Sensitivity analysis
- Garbage in, garbage out
- Utilitarianism
- Black swan events
- Systems thinking
- Unknown unknowns
- Counterfactual thinking
- Lateral thinking
- Groupthink
- Bandwagon effect
- Divergent thinking
- Convergent thinking
- Crowdsourcing
- Game theory
- arms Race
- prisoner’s dilemma
- Nash equilibrium
- influence models
- reciprocity
- commitment
- liking
- social proof
- scarcity
- authority
- Social norms vs market norms
- Ultimatum game
- distributive / procedural justice
- fair share / share
- appeal to emotion
- FUD - fear, uncertainty, doubt
- straw man
- ad hominem
- Trojan horse
- bait and switch
- Potemkin village
- Mutually assured destruction
- deterrence
- carrot-and-stick
- containment
- flypaper theory
- deterrence
- Domino effect
- slippery slope argument
- broken windows theory
- gateway drug theory
- Loss leader strategy
- appeasement
- Red line
- nuclear option
- zero-tolerance policy
- call your bluff
- war of attrition
- guerrilla warfare
- punching above your weight
- generals always fight the last war - default to strategies in the past
- Endgame
- exit strategy
- Hail Mary pass
- burn the boats
- Joy’s law
- 10x team
- introverts / extroverts
- generalists / specialists
- commandos / infantry / police
- foxes / hedgehogs
- Peter principle
- Managing to the person
- strategy vs tactics
- institutional knowledge
- unicorn candidate
- directly responsible individual
- bystander effect
- power vacuum
- Deliberate practice
- spacing effect
- Challenge directory - care personally
- radical candor
- ruinous empathy
- manipulative insincerity
- obnoxious aggression
- Consequence-conviction matrix
- Fixed vs growth mindset
- Pygmalion effect
- golem effect
- impostor syndrome
- Dunning-Kruger effect
- Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
- Hindsight bias
- Winning hearts and minds
- Culture
- high-context / low-context
- tight / loose
- heirachical / egalitarian
- collectivist / individualist
- objective / subjective
- loyalists / mercenaries
- Manager’s vs Maker’s schedule
- Dunbar’s number
- Boots on the ground
- Mythical man-month
- Market power
- arbitrage
- sustainable competitive advantage
- first-mover advantage / disadvantage
- product/market fit
- (open) Secret
- resonance
- Consensus-contrarian matrix
- Homebrew computer club
- Why now? Now what?
- simultaneous invention
- Observe / orient / decide / act
- pivot
- What type of customer are you hunting?
- personas
- bright spot
- beachhead
- Idea maze
- Heat-seeking missiles
- Moat
- lock-in
- switching costs
- barriers to entry / exit
- regulatory capture
- Winner-takes-most markets
- Crossing the chasm
- Cargo cult
- Circle of competence
- Overview effect