@MichMae99 10 October 2020 more from that month

How thinking works For the past few years I've had a fascinating and fun journey working my way through a good collection of titles about how thinking works; more specifically, about how thinking doesn't work the way we think it works. That we are constantly lying to, misleading, and deluding ourselves. That our knowledge, perceptions, beliefs, memories, and actions aren't nearly as rational and reasonable as we like to think. That many of our decisions, both the little, daily ones and the big, life-changing ones aren't as sound and carefully reasoned as we believe.

Photo source:https://www.google.com/search?q=thinking&client=ms-android-huawei-rev1&prmd=ivbn&sxsrf=ALeKk03nQotFAtEEbJBwBRnENnEgjil7Iw:1602316203501&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjTk4KBxansAhUEfXAKHf93D-IQ_AUoAXoECBYQAQ&biw=424&bih=779#imgrc=tv2CL4kM6W5VsM&imgdii=EuN4_UPebKZEZM While there have been times the reading has left me feeling cynical and dispirited--that there is no point trying to communicate or connect with others since their assumptions and biases will confound my efforts anyway--for the most part it has been a helpful, healthy process of improving my self-awareness and interpersonal/emotional intelligence. They've made me a better listener, less sure of my own strident opinions in discussions and more likely to assume a generous "AND" stance instead of a combative "EITHER-OR" one. Something they all have in common, for the most part, is that they spend the bulk of their time sharing the findings of recent research and studies in order to dispel our common-sense assumptions, and only after that leave a bit of space for talking about what to do with the new information. *Decisive*, on the other hand, starts with the new perspectives, explains them a little, then spends the bulk of its time sharing ways we can make better decisions in light of that information. It's less theoretical and idea-based, much more practical and applied. It's not necessarily a step-by-step formula since each decision is unique and every context requires something different, but it provides guidance and a series of checks and balances to make sure we are properly considering the issue from a variety of helpful facets. They abbreviate the process WRAP, which breaks down--with subcategories--as: Widen Your Options - Avoid a narrow frame - Multitrack - Find someone who's solved your problems Reality-Test Your Assumptions - Consider the opposite - Zoom out, zoom in - Ooch Attain Distance Before Deciding - Overcome short-term emotion - Honor your core priorities Prepare to Be Wrong - Bookend the Future - Set a Tripwire Each point requires the explanations from the book to understand the authors' perspective particularly since so much of it is about overcoming commonly accepted truths and operational habits that we unconsciously accept as acceptable--but I think it will be a very helpful process to get in the habit of following, with guidance from the material once it's in my hands. If I have one complaint about the book, it's that the Heaths spend a little too much time describing the fine details of the real-world examples they use to illustrate all of their points and not enough dwelling in the world of ideas that I love so much. I would have been happier had they tipped the balance of information to case studies and exemplification in the other direction. But, then, this is a book for practitioners.