Thinking About Thinking
December 29, 2023 9:27 AM Subscribe
Please recommend to me the mental models/thinking frameworks that have helped your organize your thoughts, make decisions, interact better with people, or generally life a better life (examples: Eisenhower's Urgent vs. Important Matrix, Steven Covey's Big Rocks-Small Rocks, Byron Katie's "The Work" questions)
Any mental model or framework will do, I just listed the examples above as a guide, but I'm interested in any sort of heuristic that helps you wrangle your brain.
Bonus points if you can explain how learning and applying these frameworks created a positive impact on your life. Thanks mefites!
Any mental model or framework will do, I just listed the examples above as a guide, but I'm interested in any sort of heuristic that helps you wrangle your brain.
Bonus points if you can explain how learning and applying these frameworks created a positive impact on your life. Thanks mefites!
I love a good matrix. The risk analysis one is good. And you can't beat the auld triangle, cheap-fast-good, pick two.
posted by Iteki at 10:11 AM on December 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by Iteki at 10:11 AM on December 29, 2023 [1 favorite]
One I learned at a job is that most disagreements are caused by information asymmetry. That is, you know something I don't, or I know something you don't, or both. The goal of an argument should therefore be to get the participants onto the same page by sharing information, not to win.
posted by kindall at 10:16 AM on December 29, 2023 [16 favorites]
posted by kindall at 10:16 AM on December 29, 2023 [16 favorites]
Always assuming the best intentions from people, unless I feel my safety is at risk. I've gotten to the point where someone could say "Fuck you and the horse you rode in on" and I'd think "Hmm, I bet they are trying to be friendly in their own peculiar way!"
It removes the problem of accidentally taking offense to something that isn't intended that way, and I also get to refuse to take offense from people who are trying to cause it. Win/win.
posted by wheatlets at 10:29 AM on December 29, 2023 [8 favorites]
It removes the problem of accidentally taking offense to something that isn't intended that way, and I also get to refuse to take offense from people who are trying to cause it. Win/win.
posted by wheatlets at 10:29 AM on December 29, 2023 [8 favorites]
Top Ten Aggravations List: What bugs you on a daily basis and upsets you the most? Fixing any one of those things is the fastest and simplest way to improve your life.
Anything and everything goes on the list: The stupid ringtone you keep meaning to update, but can't figure out how, Running constant distressing mental tracks about climate change, Cold feet keeping you awake again after you get into bed, Your housemates habit of drinking the milk and leaving you with none for breakfast cereal or morning tea, Losing your keys, Being angry at your ex, Having to merge onto the expressway during your commute, Not enough money...
Spending just one hour researching how to change your ring tone, resolving to link your anxiety about the climate to an exercise program so those intrusive thoughts are your cue to do some stair climbing and burn off the stress hormones, getting a heating pad for the foot of your bed, throwing out all the nasty old condiments in the fridge door and purchasing an extra four quarts of milk to go there, setting One Holy and Invariable Location to Put Your Keys, instituting a plan that every time you think about your ex you will immediately start thinking about the many people that you are grateful were in your life, setting you alarm twenty minutes early so you can take an alternate route... and you will have ameliorated seven out of eight of the things that leave you cross and frustrated and miserable. Not only that, but you can do all those things in one day.
An awful lot of the things that distress us are small things like the ringtone and the lack of milk for breakfast, or they are patterns of thought, like ruminating about climate change and our exes. The small things can often be fixed by prioritizing them according to how much they upset us. The patterns of thought can be changed by substituting actions that made it difficult to go back to the same mental tracks.
Keeping a recurring top ten aggravations list and making sure there is nothing on it that could be dealt with is not just a good way of making your life better, but it leads to insights over time, where you can notice patterns, like that you always ruminate late in the day when you are tired and the problem is being tired, not the specific recurring thoughts. If you have the realization that the one thing that is always distressing you is lack of money, so you need to make major changes, like moving to a place with lower cost of living, or changing jobs to one that pays more. It also means that when the same problem shows up again, you have to think of a new solution or a new approach every time you review your list, and this increases the chances you will hit on something that works.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:27 AM on December 30, 2023 [7 favorites]
Anything and everything goes on the list: The stupid ringtone you keep meaning to update, but can't figure out how, Running constant distressing mental tracks about climate change, Cold feet keeping you awake again after you get into bed, Your housemates habit of drinking the milk and leaving you with none for breakfast cereal or morning tea, Losing your keys, Being angry at your ex, Having to merge onto the expressway during your commute, Not enough money...
Spending just one hour researching how to change your ring tone, resolving to link your anxiety about the climate to an exercise program so those intrusive thoughts are your cue to do some stair climbing and burn off the stress hormones, getting a heating pad for the foot of your bed, throwing out all the nasty old condiments in the fridge door and purchasing an extra four quarts of milk to go there, setting One Holy and Invariable Location to Put Your Keys, instituting a plan that every time you think about your ex you will immediately start thinking about the many people that you are grateful were in your life, setting you alarm twenty minutes early so you can take an alternate route... and you will have ameliorated seven out of eight of the things that leave you cross and frustrated and miserable. Not only that, but you can do all those things in one day.
An awful lot of the things that distress us are small things like the ringtone and the lack of milk for breakfast, or they are patterns of thought, like ruminating about climate change and our exes. The small things can often be fixed by prioritizing them according to how much they upset us. The patterns of thought can be changed by substituting actions that made it difficult to go back to the same mental tracks.
Keeping a recurring top ten aggravations list and making sure there is nothing on it that could be dealt with is not just a good way of making your life better, but it leads to insights over time, where you can notice patterns, like that you always ruminate late in the day when you are tired and the problem is being tired, not the specific recurring thoughts. If you have the realization that the one thing that is always distressing you is lack of money, so you need to make major changes, like moving to a place with lower cost of living, or changing jobs to one that pays more. It also means that when the same problem shows up again, you have to think of a new solution or a new approach every time you review your list, and this increases the chances you will hit on something that works.
posted by Jane the Brown at 6:27 AM on December 30, 2023 [7 favorites]
I can't name a specific framework exactly, but everything in the book The Extended Mind.
posted by lookoutbelow at 10:17 AM on December 30, 2023
posted by lookoutbelow at 10:17 AM on December 30, 2023
kim scott's radical candor model evolved how i relate with others at work. i can't do the book justice in summarizing, but kim scott herself offers a six minute explainer. this model jives well with my preference for direct communication but made a significant difference in changing how i show up (see also: "asshole quadrant"). my prior mental model saw these in one dimension: a sliding scale with honesty on one end, and niceness on the other. reconceptualizing this as a grid changed my behaviour (evidenced by the changes i noticed in my workplace relationships), as i understood how i could keep my directness and add in more relationality.
posted by tamarack at 1:44 PM on December 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by tamarack at 1:44 PM on December 30, 2023 [1 favorite]
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Gregory Bateson's essays in "Steps to an Ecology of Mind" gave me a lot of good tools and vocabulary to understand metacognition in an abstract way. Also his concept of "the double bind" has been invaluable to me to recognizing a certain kind of situational / emotional paralysis and allowing me to articulate and reflect on what is happening.
In general, acquiring vocabulary for mental processes is itself a powerful tool for me in terms of recognizing, navigating, and intervening in these mental processes. For instance, I am much more likely to recognize and work to correct a bias or a thought distortion in myself if I have the vocabulary for it. The more visible my own mental schemas are to me, the less at their mercy I feel.
A mindfulness visualization that has been very helpful to me, in particular for distress tolerance, and avoiding impulsive actions (which has implications both for decision-making and interpersonal relationships) is visualizing my mind as the sky and thoughts as the clouds. I imagine different imagery could work better for someone else, but the principle of objectifying the relationship between my "self" and my "feelings" into a visual metaphor that I can get feedback from has been very valuable to me.
I don't know if there is a formal term for it (I am sure there is), but I find it helpful to iterate self-reflexive "why do I feel this way?" questions to get to the core emotion or core need that is at the bottom of a particular feeling or desire. For me, this approach dovetails with strategies from cognitive behavioral therapy and narrative therapy where I interrogate what story I am telling myself, and how I could come up with an alternative story.
Last but not least, some years ago I worked with a Jungian therapist, who taught me the Jungian approach to dream analysis, where every "protagonist" is some aspect of yourself, and that is how you approach and interpret a dream. That has been a helpful heuristic for me to illuminate associations and beliefs that are otherwise hidden from my conscious awareness.
posted by virve at 9:51 AM on December 29, 2023 [3 favorites]