Chapter III

Question 1

north star

Answer 1

refers to a guiding vision or mission statement to orient actions toward and provide guidance

Question 2

compound interest

Answer 2

refers to your interest (or actions) growing over time and adding interest/value on the principal as well as the interest

Question 3

multitasking

Answer 3

low-concentration autopilot thinking. Never do it when something require deep work/thinking

Question 4

the top idea in your mind

Answer 4

focusing on one high-concentration activity at a time to help produce dramatically better results

Question 5

deep work

Answer 5

dedicating long, uninterrupted periods of time to making progress on your most important problem

Question 6

eisenhower decision matrix

Answer 6

two-by-two matrix to prioritize important activities across your never ending to-do list

1. manage - urgent and important: crisis/emergency, family obligations, real deadlines
2. focus- not urgent, but important - strategic planning, relationship-building, deep work
3. triage - urgent, but not important: interruptions, ‘pressing’ matters, most events
4. avoid - not urgent, not important: busywork, picking out clothes, most emails

Question 7

sayre’s law

Answer 7

in any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at state

Question 8

bike-shedding

Answer 8

reluctance to deeply discuss all the complicated aspects of a challenge or project and instead weigh in with their opinion on some small trivial matter

Question 9

opportunity cost

Answer 9

every choice you make has a cost, the value of the est alternative opportunity you didn’t choose. as a rule, you want to choose the options with the lowest opportunity cost

Question 10

opportunity cost of capital,

Answer 10

the return you’d get on the best alternative use of that capital, your second best opportunity cost

Question 11

BATNA, best alternative to a negotiated agreement

Answer 11

if you have a job offer, your BATNA is the best alternative job offer you have in hand, including your current job. You should accept an offer worse than your BATNA bc you can always take this better alternative

Question 12

leverage

Answer 12

applying a small amount of force or effort in a particular area to produce out-sized results, relative to similar applications of force or effort

Question 13

high leverage activites

Answer 13

getting the most bang for your buck (best return on time, money)

Question 14

pareto principle

Answer 14

80% of results come from approximately 20% of the effort. addressing this 20% is therefore a high-leverage activity

Question 15

law of diminshing returns

Answer 15

tendency for continued effort to diminish in effectiveness after a certain level of result has been achieved

Question 16

law of diminishing utility

Answer 16

where the value or utility of consuming an additional item is usually, after a certain point less than the value of the previous one consumed (think of how you feel after eating a 2nd or 3rd donut)

Question 17

burnout

Answer 17

where high stress can take its toll and eventually extinguish your motivation, or worse

Question 18

present bias

Answer 18

tendency to overvalue near-term rewards in the present over making incremental progress on long-term goals

Question 19

discount rate

Answer 19

negative compounding discounts payments out into the future more and more

Question 20

hyperbolic discounting

Answer 20

valuing instant gratification over delayed gratification

Question 21

commitment

Answer 21

committing in some way to your desired future

Question 22

default effect

Answer 22

effect stemming from the fact that many people jsut accept default options (to refrain from making decisions, thinking)

Question 23

parkinson’s law

Answer 23

work expands to fill the time available to its completion

Question 24

hofstadter’s law

Answer 24

it always takes longer than you expect, even when you consider that they take longer than you expect

Question 25

loss aversion

Answer 25

you are more inclined to avoid losses, to be averse to them, than you are to want to make similar gains

Question 26

sunk-cost fallacy

Answer 26

not acknowledging that past costs/resources spent on a project to date, including time, cannot be gotten back

Question 27

design pattern

Answer 27

reusable solutions to a design problem

Question 28

anti-pattern

Answer 28

the opposite of a well-tested design pattern

Question 29

brute force

Answer 29

exhaustive pattern for accomplishing some task

Question 30

heuristic

Answer 30

trial-and-error solution that isn’t guaranteed to yield optimal results, but is usually effective

Question 31

economies of scale

Answer 31

when an operation becomes more efficient as its size increases

Question 32

parallel processing

Answer 32

solve a group of problems in parallel

Question 33

divide and conquer

Answer 33

breaking a problem into component pieces and delegate and solve them individually

Question 34

Tactical effectiveness

Answer 34

Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe