Why use Mental Models?

Mental models help us understand how the world works, they are heuristic cognitive frameworks that allow us to identify which factors are important and how they interact with each other. They equip us to analyze situations faster and act methodically with better results over time.

You don't need a deep understanding of a subject matter to tap into the insight of experts for yourself, mental models release the core insight for little effort. Mental Models are a reductionist approach that ignores nuances in specific instances making them very useful but not foolproof.

Charlie Munger (Co-founder with Warren Buffett) is a great advocate for mental models and The Personal MBA by Josh Kaufman also has a great collection. I suggest a process where you continuously grow a repository of mental models so that you "know what you don't know", then more importantly keep internalizing a prioritized subset through experimentation and deliberate practice to ensure they improve your actions and choices.

• ?Think and use models across traditional domains and boundaries, I like using an Ontology relationship structure to make this easier
• Let your Mental Model evolve over time, it can start off as a one-line description or quote and be fleshed out over time with hints, warnings, and related concepts as the insight it provides gets integrated holistically and understood in more depth
• Only value the practical impact of knowledge, memorizing knowledge is easy it is much more difficult to internalize them into automatic behaviour

Some examples of Mental Models

• Pareto Principal - 80% of the value gets released with the first 20% of the effort
• Feedback Loops - Positive and negative feedback loops are powerful forces that can have exponential and compounding effects that are difficult to visualize upfront
• Time Perspective - How far ahead are you thinking when making choices in the present
• The Happiness Equation - Happiness = Expectation - Reality?

My Body of Knowledge

Below is a screenshot of some of my Axioms / Mental Models. The journey of internalizing the right Mental Models for your needs is where the true value lies, don't get fooled to think that having a large list of Axioms on its own will help you.