How to think

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." - Blaise Pascal

I was 2,409 meters above sea level on vacation with friends, enjoying a fun day. That night, we were crammed into a room, the lights off after a long session of board games. As we settled into bed, my friends kept chatting, but I lay there, lost in thought.

Suddenly, one of my friends commented on my silence. I responded, surprising them—they had assumed I had been asleep for over an hour.

"Why aren't you asleep yet?" one asked.

"I'm thinking," I replied.

"Thinking? About what?" another queried.

"About the day," I said.

"For an hour?" came the surprised response.

"Yes."

This kicked off a long series of questions and answers. I explained how I process my thoughts and why I sometimes take longer than others. I shared that when I encounter new information, I compare each with all my existing mental models and see if it fits. Do I need to update the model, do I need to discard the model, is new information valid, is it partially valid, or utter garbage. This is an exhaustive process done consciously and subconsciously. The newer the information, the slower the process.

I am naturally good at convergent thinking. Some people are divergent in thinking. Both are different kinds. The first thing is to identify when to do what kind of thinking and what you are natural at. Divergent thinking is good for creative tasks and ideation but not for analysis and decision-making. I see divergent people struggle with using the same methods in decision-making and can't converge their thoughts. On the other hand, convergent thinkers have problems being spontaneous, thinking outside the box, or with arts in general. This essay covers analytical and convergent thinking.

There are a few problems with how most people think. They don't think hard enough. They think the same thought patterns repeatedly. They are oblivious to different perspectives about a topic. Their thinking is diluted and all over the place (divergent when convergence is needed). They take the worldview of society and parents for granted while growing up. They don't know themselves and their biases well enough. They mistake stress and anxiousness for thinking. They are unserious. They don't course correct. I will talk about these issues one at a time.

The brain is a pattern-making machine with two modes of thinking: consciously and unconsciously. As Daniel Kahnemann puts it, thinking slow and fast. Fast thinking is done unconsciously, subconsciously, intuitively, impulsively, and uses guts. Slow thinking is done consciously, deliberately, meticulously, and responsibly. The story above describes slow thinking. Slow thinking about some process long enough, can help you do fast thinking about it. Our subconscious learns. Slow thinking is like doing long division, while fast thinking is like responding to "How are you?"

Intuition is trained. All thinking, slow and fast, is prone to error in different ways. Slow thinking because of lack of information. You can only try hard enough but can't get all the information. Fast thinking is prone to error because of a lack of training or cognitive biases.

You cannot be right all the time, in fact you are wrong most of the time. Trying to be right all the time is perfectionism/overthinking. The idea is to be less wrong. If you list cognitive biases there are hundreds of them. What to eat for lunch can become a painful decision if you check it against all the cognitive biases. We can only know so much. Our understanding of biases can be biased. If you skip over trivial matters, it's still hard to check important decisions with all the possible biases, perspectives, and whatifs.

However, doing that is important to develop your cognition, intuition, and gut. If you always make your eating decisions carefully and meticulously, over time, you can make eating decisions quickly and correctly (as much as possible). Practice long enough and you look like a natural. That is when "work" becomes "play". That is when other people call you a genius at something.

Now take all aspects of your life, one at a time, sort them in descending order of importance, and think through one aspect very slowly, in and out, through and through. Again, very slowly, in and out, through and through. If you pick one area, every year, in 30 years, you can master 30 areas of your life. I think 30 is too much. If you do that for 3 important aspects, you are already way ahead of the populace. There is no magic to thinking better but it does appear magical when you master it. There is no shortcut. Just hard work. Train your intuition so that making decisions becomes easy.

Quantity precedes quality. To have a quality mind/thought/thinking, think a lot. Do not think about the same thing from the same perspective repeatedly. That makes you an overthinker. Think all sorts of perspectives. Think about how to think. Approach the problem from your preferred angle to the polar opposite angle. If you like french fries, think about them from a fries' hater perspective too. ...and seller, maker, buyer, nutritionist, McDonald's, history, cost, gut, ingredients, satiety, etc. The list is never-ending. Each domain has different perspectives. Thinking about why someone lied needs analyzing human DNA, evolution, history, individuality, personality, intrinsic motivations, desires, relationships, rapport, culture, religion, childhood, etc.

Build knowledge of perspectives. For a topic, there are hundreds of perspectives to consider, and on each perspective, hundreds of biases to check. Discovering perspectives and biases goes hand in hand with the topic itself. Discovering a new perspective helps make foundational progress in thought, not just on the topic, but also across a spectrum of related topics. For example, when thinking about human behaviors always consider the history of humanity. Our DNA hasn't changed yet ironically social sciences change every few years drastically. Keeping history in mind helps you tell trends from the truth. It helps in answering all questions related to humans. History is a perspective. There are perspectives unique and important to each branch of knowledge. Think about those perspectives. Ignorance is not knowing the different perspectives on the topic.

Wisdom is about what you take away from hindsight.
Day to day, the wise are fumbling around.

...like a duck. Calm on the surface. Paddling like hell underneath.

No one is born wise. It demands work. Thinking is draining. Given that thinking is arduous, filter what to think about and where to use your brain space. That is also why you should prioritize what to focus on. Cut noise excessively. Cut everything by default. Keep one thing focal and everything else on autopilot. Keep at it until you master it. It comes at the cost of not thinking about everything else though. This doesn't apply if you are neurodivergent. For everyone else, think linearly, one thing at a "time". Time can range from seconds, minutes, or hours to days, weeks, months, and years. Thinking about something for years doesn't mean, you sit and think only. For example, if you think about career, you have to keep at it until you figure it out. When you discover new knowledge and data, go back to the career thinking board and update your thought and priors. Acting on your knowledge helps in thinking. More about it later. Thinking is hard. Pick your battles. You can be good at anything but you can't be good at everything.

Be a skeptic. For anything important, think for yourself. Don't knee-jerk and reject everything but question. When you do that, you will be better convinced. It will make you more convincing as well. You can't argue well on borrowed arguments. Own your arguments. Own your thinking. Think from first principles. First principles are basic assumptions or propositions that cannot be deduced from other assumptions or propositions. Question every assumption until you hit something unquestionable. Do not strongly hold to a thought that is built on weak foundations or assumptions. Remember how Elon made a rocket reusable. Going back to basics help. When in doubt go back to the basics.

Think Lindy. Lindy's law says, the longer something has been around, the longer it will likely stay. When thinking about things, always remember the history of the topic. If something has been considered correct for eons, high chance it is and will stay correct. It doesn't mean you accept it as is. The burden lies on you to understand why. Most long-held traditions are Lindy but again most people don't know why to follow them. Traditional people follow them blindly while skeptics outright reject them. Answering the why connects plenty of missing dots and gives you a foundational understanding.

Follow your interests. Thinking is hard. It's easy if what you are thinking about is interesting to you.

Write. Writing is a superior form of thinking. If you have a question unanswered, write an essay about it. You will realize, how much you don't know. You will get more questions than answers. Don't be lazy when you get questions. It is like a depth-first search. Go deep into that question. Don't cover. Try to write truth only. When you say something, think about the counters to that. Explain the counterpoints. Writing will make you realize, how much you don't know. Also, how much you think you know but don't understand. Also, how much you do understand but can't write with clarity. If you can't explain something simply, to other people, it is as if you don't know. When I started writing how to beat procrastination, it took me 5-6 months. I was procrastinating but also discovering the causes as well. Also, it sprouted many questions, I had no answers and it took me time to wrap my head around it and write about it.

Writing also helps in convergent thinking. Writing makes you hold to a thought or an assumption long enough when you are looking for evidence nested four levels deep in the thought process. Without writing, you will likely forget the base assumption and get distracted with the new nested thoughts forgetting that you started with an assumption, not an axiom. Writing also keeps you from thinking along the same lines and patterns repeatedly. It makes your thinking productive.

Understand biases. Knowing biases well requires the knowledge of common biases and knowing yourself. Here is a list.

Nothing is true. Everything is true. Very often the right answer is specific to personal reality. Which exercise regimen to follow is unique to each individual. Even if you know all about exercises, pros, cons, techniques, history, and literature about exercise, you still can't do it effectively and consistently if you don't know yourself. Your preferences, body, limits, age, daily routine play an important role. It's one of those things you can't rely on anyone else to figure out for you. Same is true for nutrition, interests, career choice, business, and relationships. There is no right and wrong here. All answers are based on personal reality. Even if you work with a coach it can only help so much.

"A fit body, a calm mind, a house full of love. These things cannot be bought—they must be earned" - Naval

Knowing when to think and when to stop is important. Thinking about 5 years economic policy is different than thinking about what business to start. Former needs rigour, analysis, data, history, and whatnot. Latter needs more doing than thinking. Doing is thinking. Muscle memory is essentially fast thinking. In some problems, there's a time to think and time to do. Flip-flopping between them helps. You started a business, did something, it failed, and you go back to thinking. Think but not for too long and get back to doing again. Act, reflect, repeat. If you are only reflecting, you are overthinking and not getting anywhere. Remember again, doing is thinking.

Thinking well needs data. Data comes from doing and observing. Be a good observer. Observation is useful. Good observation is supremely useful. Observe your thoughts. Are you in control of them or it's the other way around? When you make a decision and it doesn't work out. Learn from it and course correct. If you are not taking notes on every feedback you get, you are not getting anywhere. You might think, this is too much and will make life a living hell. This is exactly why I proposed to narrow your focus. If you want to fix your sense of style, make it a priority, fix it reasonably well, start implementing, and move on with life when Overtime style becomes effortless for you. Focus on the next topic.

Thinking needs imagination. Build imagination. Experimenting, exposure, creating, and fiction builds imagination. That's an essay in itself. For example, if you think about your career, you must extrapolate yourself into the future and find out. Your imagination limits your thoughts. Imagination is not a silver bullet though. If you extrapolate too far, it can backfire. You are rationalizing too far and mostly on assumptions. Empiricism trumps rationalism. Experiment and find out. Don't spiral into thinking on assumptions. As said earlier, build a thought process on unshakeable axioms not assumptions. If you are thinking on assumptions you are overthinking. Don't overthink.

When two things are close but you have to pick one, flip a coin. Decisiveness goes a long way.

Making up your mind quickly and acting on it enables you to iterate quickly. Iteration leads to improvement. Make the feedback cycle shorter. If you are undecided you are not learning until you decide and act.

Always be questioning if you are thinking usefully or not. Stressing is one thing, thinking is another. It's easy to conflate the two.

In chess, you think of all the possible moves and make the best move. Given infinite time, you can think through the entire game and do your best. Life is not chess. Life is poker. You are dealt a hand and you have to play with that. Chess is not random, but life is.

Think usefully, deeply, intensely, and move on from a thought. Play the hands you are dealt. Some things can not be proven or disproved. Ruminate to your liking but don't get hung up for too long unless you do that for a living. Don't fall in love with thinking. Thinking is addictive. All addictions are harmful. Thinking is not the end. Just a tool.

Just like being fit is a lifestyle decision, thinking better is also a lifestyle decision. It's hard work but gets easy over time. The good news is that the returns are exponential, not linear. Knowledge compounds like hell.