Clear Thinking: The Art and Science of Making Better Decisions

Having read Shane's books on Mental Models (which I also highly recommend) I was really looking forward to this book. This book explores the skill of Clear Thinking and Shane brings to life various ways with which you can first create a space to reason in your thoughts, feelings and actions and using that space to think clearly. The book is great at creating an awareness of how we may think by default whether it's through biological instincts or other conditioning we have. It helps you understand your strengths and weaknesses and then leveraging those, creating a pause between thought and action and leveraging clear thinking to make great decisions. There are some fascinating insights in behavioural science and Shane uses very interesting and engaging stories to bring to life concepts and some really useful principles in action. This is information that's not easy to find in any other regular book so it's been very useful learning for me. Think of this book as firstly helping you understand what typically affects you and everyone else, it then helps you identify working with your strengths and weaknesses, it brings to light various examples of principles in action through powerful storytelling and it then provides you with a framework that you can use to better control your own thinking and decision making. It is a book worth studying, it's great for reference, I keep it at my desk as I am exploring these concepts and certainly has opened up eyes to things I had not considered to improve my thinking.

Gift for a relative - they’ve thoroughly enjoyed the read.

A must read for anyone! Delving into the intricacies of decision making is a thought provoking process. Will revisit yearly!

I am an occasional reader of Shane's blog and listener of his podcast. His focus has always been on finding timeless wisdom from experts, and using it to make better decisions about life. This book is along those lines. The main message is that we are biologically hardwired to fall back to certain default behaviours - which are not always in our long term interests - and so we need to be aware of these and do things to give us more space to think clearly. These "defaults" are split into broad categories: the ego default (preserving ourselves), the emotion default (responding to emotions), the inertia default (resisting change) and the social default (following what others do). The rest of the book is advice for how to make better decisions given this reality. Some of strategies include identifying "personal exemplars" to model behaviour from, changing environments to set a better default, having rules (don't say yes to a big decision without sleeping on it), making checklists etc. Others involve mindset or behavioural shifts like taking more responsibility for things, fixing mistakes properly etc. It finishes off with a section that reminds us that not everything we think we want is worth wanting, and to think and make decisions with meaningful goals in mind. Overall it was a fun read and reminds us of what is important not just in the long term, but what is important to do every day.

U need to read this book if u want a clear mind

I picked up this book at a service station; it seemed the kind of thing that I’m into. The first section deals with overcoming our conditioning and defaults, eg Societal, Social, Emotional and Ego. Then we go onto developing strengths by Self: Accountability, Knowledge, Confidence and Standards. We are reminded of the Napoleon Hill technique of having a Board of Advisors, whereby we imagine asking our exemplars, (whether living or dead) what they would do in a situation. The Decisions section is a problem-solving exercise in itself, where we: Define the Problem Create Solutions Evaluation Do it! Learn from our actions. For any venture, we are advised to do a ‘pre-mortum’; foreseeing any issues that may arise. Wanting What Matters is really an exercise in ranking our values in deciding what to invest our energy in. He cites the Christmas Carol as a lesson in realising that success at any cost doesn’t work. Though I had read about many of the ideas in the book before, there were a few things that I learned, like the Consequences/ Longevity graph for helping with short and long term decisions. Also the story of Ulysses who asked his crew to tie him to the ship’s mast so he could hear the song of the Sirens without being led to his death. A lesson in setting trip wires.

The book isnt bad and there is plenty of small text but not sure ifnits the writers style in putting down facts but im really strugfling to gwt into this. Bored of the waffle and lack of points, examples are far fetched, too long and dont resonate. Wouldnt recommend in a hurry.

Essential reading if you want your thinking and decision-making to be sharp. An awesome manual on how to cultivate clarity in your life.

Great book. I think that I will need to read it again to be sure I got everything. very usefull.

I really enjoyed this book and found it very practical and useful. It’s very well-written, and I read it from cover to cover

One of these you should have read and understood and it will change your life to the core.. amazing contribution to humanity by Shane.. so very thankful!

I have been reading Farnam Street Blog for almost 10 years now and I regularly listen to The Knowledge Project Podcast of Shane Parrish. Can't think of anyone else who consistently spreads this kind of quality content, largely for free. A couple of years ago I also followed the program The Art of Focus, which helped me reshape my habits and manage my time in a way that pays dividends to this day. This book provides a good summary of the insights that underpin all of his work. I like that all of the abstract/conceptual lessons in the book are followed by concrete real-life examples, which makes it easier to connect them to situations in your own life. Some of the subjects in this book: the importance of the "small, ordinary moments" in your life and how getting those right eventually compounds in living a meaningful life; all the ways that our defaults (emotions, ego, social default and inertia) get us into trouble and how to recognize them and not let them control you; how to build strenth and learn to think clearly; self-accountability and taking radical responsibility for your decisions and behaviour; self-knowledge; self-confidence; safeguard strategies to protect yourself; how to define a problem and how to explore & evaluate possible solutions; how to learn from your decisions, etc. If you like this book, also consider buying the series "The Great Mental Models" of the same writer. All of the books and blogposts written by Shane Parrish and his team provide content that you can read and re-read throughout your life. Each time you will find new lessons.

Great book to read. The understanding is translated into simpler terms and phrases make it meaningful and easy for reader to correlate. Great read.