Chapter III Flashcards
north star
refers to a guiding vision or mission statement to orient actions toward and provide guidance
compound interest
refers to your interest (or actions) growing over time and adding interest/value on the principal as well as the interest
multitasking
low-concentration autopilot thinking. Never do it when something require deep work/thinking
the top idea in your mind
focusing on one high-concentration activity at a time to help produce dramatically better results
deep work
dedicating long, uninterrupted periods of time to making progress on your most important problem
eisenhower decision matrix
two-by-two matrix to prioritize important activities across your never ending to-do list
- manage - urgent and important: crisis/emergency, family obligations, real deadlines
- focus- not urgent, but important - strategic planning, relationship-building, deep work
- triage - urgent, but not important: interruptions, ‘pressing’ matters, most events
- avoid - not urgent, not important: busywork, picking out clothes, most emails
sayre’s law
in any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at state
bike-shedding
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
opportunity cost
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
opportunity cost of capital,
the return you’d get on the best alternative use of that capital, your second best opportunity cost
BATNA, best alternative to a negotiated agreement
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
leverage
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
high leverage activites
getting the most bang for your buck (best return on time, money)
pareto principle
80% of results come from approximately 20% of the effort. addressing this 20% is therefore a high-leverage activity
law of diminshing returns
tendency for continued effort to diminish in effectiveness after a certain level of result has been achieved
law of diminishing utility
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)
burnout
where high stress can take its toll and eventually extinguish your motivation, or worse
present bias
tendency to overvalue near-term rewards in the present over making incremental progress on long-term goals
discount rate
negative compounding discounts payments out into the future more and more
hyperbolic discounting
valuing instant gratification over delayed gratification
commitment
committing in some way to your desired future
default effect
effect stemming from the fact that many people jsut accept default options (to refrain from making decisions, thinking)
parkinson’s law
work expands to fill the time available to its completion
hofstadter’s law
it always takes longer than you expect, even when you consider that they take longer than you expect
loss aversion
you are more inclined to avoid losses, to be averse to them, than you are to want to make similar gains
sunk-cost fallacy
not acknowledging that past costs/resources spent on a project to date, including time, cannot be gotten back
design pattern
reusable solutions to a design problem
anti-pattern
the opposite of a well-tested design pattern
brute force
exhaustive pattern for accomplishing some task
heuristic
trial-and-error solution that isn’t guaranteed to yield optimal results, but is usually effective
economies of scale
when an operation becomes more efficient as its size increases
parallel processing
solve a group of problems in parallel
divide and conquer
breaking a problem into component pieces and delegate and solve them individually
Tactical effectiveness
Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe
