Here are my notes on Shane Parrish’s book Clear Thinking.

  • Practice clear thinking in “ordinary” moments — moments when you’re tired, triggered, scattered.
    • Roadmaps let you focus on the essential. By removing what’s irrelevant, roadmaps let you see clearly what matters. (× OKR)
  • The formula for failure is a few small errors consistently repeated.

Generalities

  • It’s not the strongest or most intelligent species that survives, but the most adaptable.
  • Confidence vs ego: confident people have the strength to admit their mistakes, weaknesses, vulnerabilities.
  • Outcome over ego. Admitting you’re wrong is a sign of strength, not a sign of weakness. It takes courage to revise your ideas.
  • Going with the crowd is instant gratification; going against is delayed gratification.
  • Our identity is part of the territory we defend (as animals). (Though it is also our ego’s survival instinct — selves don’t want to die.) (× Conflict Communication)
    • Territory promotes survival (from an evolutionary standpoint): “You stay out of my territory, I stay out of yours.”
  • We react negatively to threats to our established social order. “Who are you to cut me off?”: violating rules implies higher status. (× status games, Conflict Communication)
  • Most dreams die from a lack of confidence rather than a lack of competence.
  • “If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing you need to do is stop digging.”
  • It is in extraordinary moments that we prove our character. “Anyone can steer the ship when the sea is calm.”
  • “Diversification is protection against ignorance. It makes little sense if you know what you are doing.”

Excellence

  • To be excellent, understand the fundamentals deeply. Excellent people don’t have “special tricks”, they just understand the fundamentals at a deeper level than most.
  • Exceptional people analyze and learn from their mistakes more than regular people. Mistakes are opportunities; LEARN FROM THEM. “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” (× Improvise: failures are only valuable if you learn from them). You can’t learn if you ignore your mistakes.
  • Surround yourself with people “who are already there” — people with your desired behaviour. (To The Actor (environment); Creative Being (artistic community, upward spiral))
  • Ask mentors how to think about the problem; not for solutions. “How can I come to the right decision?” (vs “What’s the best decision?”) “How can I tell what kind of X this is?” (vs “What kind of X is this?”) (teach how to fish; × charity vs mutual aid)
    • Follow up after asking for advice — on how things turned out. Mentors appreciate. “Making it more than a transactional request (× Debt). Building a relationship, a network.”
    • Unwitting exemplar to others. You are probably a model for certain people you have met throughout your life, without you knowing.
  • The people with the best defaults are typically the ones with the best environment. (× The Design of Everyday Things (healthy defaults); Nudge (healthy defaults)).
  • A large part of self-success is doing what needs to be done, even when you don’t feel like it.
  • Acquire traits through repeated actions. Actions come first. (C’est en forgeant qu’on devient forgeron.)
  • Have high standards for yourself. Self-accountability.
    • Exceptional outcomes are achieved by people with higher-than-average standards.
    • Read people with high standards; learn from them.
      • For the first time in history, we can listen to incredibly smart people explain their thinking, unfiltered, unmediated.
      • No perfect role-models: don’t reject an exemplar wholesale because of a character blemish. Take what’s to be taken. No one’s perfect.
  • “No one cares. It’s your fault.” (Making excuses.)
  • “Not your fault? Still your responsibility.” (× Toyota Way: single-point accountability)

Pre-mortem

  • Know what makes you happy. Self-knowledge.
  • Pre-mortems: anticipate all the way things can go wrong and prepare solutions. (× Improvise; Come As You Are) Know your weaknesses and plan safeguards around them.
  • Anticipate general setbacks. (e.g. war) Prepare how to respond. The hardest setbacks to deal with are the ones we’re not prepared for.
    • People aren’t bad problem solvers; they’re bad problem anticipators.
  • Margin of safety: make it 2x. Make it 2x what you think is already safe. (e.g. emergency fund, etc.) Also for future-proofing: e.g. weight rating of bridges in case future cars are somehow heavier.

Houston

  • How you define the problem changes what you see.
    • What if the issue is elsewhere? ⇒ Identify the underlying problem; go one deeper. (× The Toyota Way: culture) (e.g. “How to get more people to adopt dogs?” ⇒ “How can fewer people abandon dogs in the first place?”) (× fixing symptoms vs root cause; root cause analysis, five whys). It’s sometimes cheaper to fix problems at the source!
  • Problem-solution firewall: Separate defining the problem from searching for a solution. Hold a meeting for identifying the problem; and another one for searching for solutions. Make sure everyone agrees on what the problem is before searching for solutions — else people brainstorm solutions to different problems. (× Double-diamond brainstorming model, The Design of Everyday Things) (also for personal issues.)
  • Address things fast, before inertia settles. The longer you wait, the more difficult. (talk about things early on; × Sex Talks: dry spells)
    • It’s only after we accept reality that we can attempt to change it.
  • Give the best of yourself to the most important things. Design your day and context such that your best self is present for the most important occasions. (≠ coming home tired to one’s spouse, “the most important person in our life”). A recipe for disaster: giving the best of ourselves to the least important things and the worst of ourselves to the most important things.
  • Take decisions fast for trivial matters (e.g. reversible actions) — don’t lose your energy on them.

Decisions for life on earth

  • Change by example. Instead of setting a rule, demonstrate it (be the change you want to see, etc.) The commander of the ship “just doing it”, queuing like the sailors (and eating with them). (Acting the way, not commanding the way.) (× Gemba; “show, don’t tell”)
  • Trial decisions: Pretend the decision was already made. Live with it for a couple days; act as if it had been already made (but don’t announce it yet — it’s a trial for yourself). (× set OKRs in advance of kickoff)
  • Decision journal: Log your decision-making. You have to make your reasoning visible in order to correct it.
    • Log your reasoning as you are making the decision — not after the fact (or you will distort it.)
    • Write down your reasoning and decision, then sleep on it.
  • Gather more information to make easier decisions.
    • Fake launch: figure out if there is customer interest by launching a product and seeing if people order.
  • Progressive commitment: make it low-stakes before fully committing. (e.g. trialing a potential new CEO with a small project first)
  • Option C: most choices seem to be between A and B, while there is often a third option.
    • Find ways to have both (or negotiate — Never Split the Difference)
    • Brainstorm at least three options — especially when there seems to be only two.
    • What if I have to? (do one, or the other) What would be a proactive way of going about doing it? What would you change?
  • What is the cost of choosing this? What do I sacrifice for it?
  • Right decision but wrong result: When you evaluate a decision, focus on your decision-making process, not the outcome. A good decision can still lead to a bad outcome. (× Improvise: Celebrate the process) Take note of what information you were lacking when you made the decision.
  • For fast consensus, ask for positive criteria. (e.g. when picking a food spot with people, focus on wants rather than don’t wants.) Applied to — music menu meeting. (× Creative Being)
  • Quantify tradeoffs. How would of X to make it worth sacrificing Y? (Is this certification worth spending 10 hours on? Do I want to pay €20 to save five hours of work?)
  • Rules to prevent decision fatigue. (× XPs; × Ulysses Pact) — knowing your priorities help (× communicating your criteria when delegating)
  • Tripwires (conditional rules) — prevents clouded judgment in the moment. “When/if X happens, we do Y” (e.g. Mt. Everest: if this point is not reached by that time, we abort the climb.)
  • Communicate your criteria when delegating decision-making. Explain how you make your decisions. (× AI automations; Wouter van den Bijgaart’s talk at PKM Summmit 2025)
    • Have it be clear for everyone what’s the most important thing (e.g. the customer). (× OKR — picking the right metrics)
      • There is only one most important thing — in every project, goal, company. (× The One Thing) (e.g. serving the customer)
    • (× Light the Music with a Beat: check in with the client first thing, be on the same page on their vision and how the audience should feel.)
  • Delegate the goal, not the method. Let the team figure out how to reach the goal — let their creativity shine (this is the reason you have a team in the first place). No micro-management. (× Measure What Matters: give people autonomy on how to solve the problems; × Psycho-Cybernetics: automatic mechanism)

Frames of reference

  • Get the information at the source. The further away, the more filters and the more distorted the information. (× Gemba; IDFA documentary; global affairs / civil unrest).
  • “What did I miss?” For understanding, paraphrase and ask what you missed (× Creative Being: repeat feedback you heard; Never Split the Difference: paraphrase) (or what you know (or see) that the other people in the room don’t.)
  • Know the opposite side (deeply). Be able to argue against yourself better than your opponents.
  • “Frame of reference”
    • e.g. at a workshop: frame of reference of oneself, of our friend, of the relationship (and what the workshop contributes to our relationship), of the group (“what does the scene need?” — Improvise) (× a character’s superobjective vs the play’s superobjective — Chekhov)
    • e.g. inner experience vs outer experience. “It looks impressive but it feels different”
    • e.g. only being able to see “from outside” that you’re on a collision course.
      • Use the lens of others to realize what you’ve been missing.

Urgency

  • Urgency/intentionality: imagine you’re spending $1000 an hour for the time spent with that person. Cut to the chase and make the most of it.
  • Memento Mori. What would you regret if this was your last day? Savor daily pleasures instead of waiting for “big-ticket items” to make you happy. Practices of joy.
    • “Not what matters in the moment, but what matters in life.” — don’t chase the wrong things.