5 Step Framework for Better Decisions

Hey! I’ve transitioned the newsletter to being a monthly publication as I start to focus more on launching 100 Bio and a podcast.

Today at a glance:

🌒 Tool: Kanna — A Heartmind Nootropic

🧪 4 Step Framework for Better Decisions

• Notes from Shane Parrish’s ‘Clear Thinking’

4 MINUTE READ

 TOOL: KANNA — A Heartmind Nootropic

Kanna is potentially the best supplement I’ve ever taken — for heart-opening, creativity, and feelings of contentment. I feel a grounded sense of aliveness, and connected to myself and nature.

Kanna is a natural empathogen and psychoactive (not psychedelic) plant that’s been widely used across South Africa for thousands of years. It’s clinically-proven to reduce stress and increase focus.

It’s been profound for me at a higher dose (50mg - 60mg).

I can’t recommend it enough, I’ve been taking it daily with Cacao or Matcha before my creative practice and am finding balanced contentment in my life — focusing on what really matters.

KA! Empathogenics tincture is super high integrity, excellent effect, and the flavor is great.

Nootropics Depot’s 50mg dissolvable tablets effect is also top notch, sourcing is high integrity, and is half the cost. Taste isn’t as good as KA! tincture though.

5 Step Framework for Better Decisions

Making decisions is the main job description for entrepreneurs, and to some extent creatives (although, I think creatives should trust intuition a lot more than exhaustive reasoning).

The quality of our decision-making affects everything about our entrepreneurial pursuits.

I’m a big believer in incorporating intuition into the decision-making process, as much as possible. However, it can get tricky when you’re making business decisions that require more information, from all angles, before properly incorporating intuition into the process.

It can also be challenging when our biases, fears, anxieties, or mental patterns get in the way of the process.

This framework assists with slowing down and assessing things deeply before making important decisions - giving space to notice biases, etc.

The purpose of this decision-making framework (notes from Shane Parrish’s Clear Thinking Book) is to:

• Uncover blindspots in our thinking and decision-making process

• Create an extensive format for gathering the correct information for thinking through the problem

• Become skilled at the process of making decisions, not necessarily the outcome

• Refine our abilities over time

1] Clearly Define the Problem / Scope of the Decision

• Dedicate a whole session of brainstorming to simply defining the problem, before coming up with solutions

• Take responsibility for defining the problem yourself. Don't let others define it for you.

• Identify what you want to achieve and what obstacles stand in the way.

• Dig deep to find the root cause of the problem, not just surface symptoms.

• Ask "What would have to be true for this problem not to exist?"

• Write out the problem and look at it the next day. If you're using jargon, you don't fully understand the problem yet.

2] Explore Possible Solutions

• Imagine different possible futures and ways of overcoming the obstacles to get what you want.

• Don't avoid the brutal realities. Confront the most unpleasant facts of the situation.

• Use "premortem" thinking - imagine all the ways it could go wrong and how you'll overcome those scenarios. Leave nothing out of consideration.

• Beware of jumping to the first plausible solution. Make sure you're addressing the real problem, not a symptom.

• Consider opportunity costs - what opportunities are you forgoing by choosing each option?

  • View them through 3 lenses: 1) Compared to the other option? 2) And then what? (what additional consequences will unfold from the decision) 3) At the expense of what (what’s the opportunity cost of that decision?)

• Avoid binary thinking. Force yourself to come up with at least 3 options. Ask "What would I do if each option was not possible?"

• Look for integrative "Both-And" options that combine elements of binary Either-Or choices.

3] Thoroughly Evaluate Options

• Identify clear criteria for evaluating options. They should be simple, promote the ultimate goal, and be decisive.

• Get high-quality information, as close to the original source as possible (High-Fidelity/HiFi).

• Talk directly to experts with specific knowledge of the problem (High-Expertise/HiEx). Compensate them for their time.

• Be clear on the single most important criterion. Align your team around this for independent decision-making.

  • Make criteria "battle" each other for priority. Assign quantities/prices to them to reveal what matters most to you.

  • Make a tournament of all the criteria, and make them battle to see which is higher priority, until you get the highest priority criteria

• Distinguish real experts from imitators. Real experts can explain things simply, adapt their vocabulary, admit failures, and know their limits.

4] Make the Decision & Execute

• If a decision is inconsequential and easily reversible, make it as soon as possible. Gather just enough info and move on.

• If a decision is highly consequential and difficult/costly to reverse, make it as late as reasonably possible while gathering thorough info.

• Know when to stop analyzing and act.

  1. Stop when you're not getting useful new information

  2. Act when you're about to lose your First Opportunity

  3. Act when you deeply Know the right path forward

  • When you're clear after thorough analysis, don't hesitate. Take action and do it. There is no value in knowing the right thing to do if you don't execute.

5] Use a Decision Journal

• Like “quality control for our thinking” a decision journal allows us to get our thoughts about a decision down before make it, and learn from them by collecting accurate and honest feedback on what you were thinking at the time you made the decision

• Shane Parrish: “It’s hard to remember what we knew at the time and what were thinking. Hindsight makes things far more explainable and changes our story. A decision journal helps combat this by recording what you knew and what you thought at the time. When you look at your own handwriting you come face to face with the person you were when you made the decision. There is nowhere to hide.”

• Daniel Kahneman’s simple decision journal

  • Go down to a local drugstore and buy a very cheap notebook and start keeping track of your decisions. And the specific idea is whenever you’re making a consequential decision, something going in or out of the portfolio, just take a moment to think, write down what you expect to happen, why you expect it to happen and then actually, and this is optional, but probably a great idea, is write down how you feel about the situation, both physically and even emotionally. Just, how do you feel? I feel tired. I feel good, or this stock is really draining me. Whatever you think.

    The key to doing this is that it prevents something called hindsight bias, which is no matter what happens in the world, we tend to look back on our decision-making process, and we tilt it in a way that looks more favorable to us, right? So we have a bias to explain what has happened.

• Additional optional questions to add in the journal

  • The situation or context

  • The problem statement or frame

  • The variables that govern the situation

  • The complications or complexity as you see it

  • Alternatives that were seriously considered and why they were not chosen (think: the work required to have an opinion)

  • A paragraph explaining the range of outcomes

  • A paragraph explaining what you expect to happen and the reasoning and actual probabilities you assign to each projected outcome (The degree of confidence matters, a lot.)

  • The time of day you’re making the decision and how you feel physically and mentally (If you’re tired, for example, write it down.)

  • What’s the primary thesis

  • What is the expected outcome(s)

  • What are the second and third-order consequences

  • What is the worst-case scenario and why that’s ok

  • What is the potential upside beyond the core thesis

  • What emotions am I experiencing

  • What is the opportunity cost (by doing this what am I not doing)

  • What unique advantages or insights do I have in this situation

  • Who is the best person to make this decision

  • What does this look like in 5 weeks, 5 months, 5 years?

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