Book Notes: Smart Choices – a Practical Guide to Making Better Life Decisions

Nice article, Jason.

With regards to this point:

The most common ... mistake people make ... is that they just don’t think about it.

... while that is true, I think the root problem is that people don't think about it for themselves.

In other words, people are apt to use analogies or proxies to simplify the decision process. This is useful short-hand for a lot of things in life (no need to think too much about uber), but leaves much to be desired for pivotal decisions. Silicon Valley is an echo chamber ... are you ideas really your own? or are you parroting someone else?

I think Elon Musk says it best in his interview with Kevin Rose: http://youtu.be/g92rP1Mi_oQ

His main point is to take time to think from first principals (e.g. the raw materials of rockets cost less than <1% of the finished product ... therefore, something is wrong!) and to try to come to your own conclusions.

Thanks Jason for the notes. I too highlight important bits and pieces that I read and type them up later. Having a cliff notes document on each book is useful if I ever need to go back and find some specific detail (I know this seems redundant in that I could just read the kindle version and use the highlight feature but there's something about books in paper form that I can't drop).

Does anyone know of a good website that has similar cliff notes on books? Maybe one where you can read notes by others and contribute your own. Thanks

Seems like good advice when having to make weightier decisions, but when it comes to decisons of the heart, not so much.

On a related note, I remember hearing about a study (this is going back almost a decade now) showing that those who live in poverty were often found to have poor decision-making skills.

The findings sounds both obvious and patently unfair, but I wonder if anyone else has heard of a study like that. A link would be great.