Principles

Systems Tendencies

System’s tend to minimize their energy and maximize their entropy over time.

Problem First Reasoning

Keep the focus of an organization on solving a real problem. Don’t merry yourself to solutions, technologies, or methods that divert you from that problem.

Parkinson’s Law

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

Sequencing Principle

The order of actions or elements in a given system will alter observed system dynamics.

When someone deeply associates their self-identity with an idea they weaken their rationality filter in regards to that idea. Examples include politics and religion. Overcome via Outcome Dissociation.

Mean Regression

If a transient variable is measured at an extreme, probability suggests it will be less extreme upon a second measurement.

Inversion

The best way to solve a problem is often to invert it. Consider what you don’t want, then determine how to avoid the actions that cause what you don’t want.

Earned Value Capture

The best way to get what you want is to deserve it. Create value in the manner you’d want the person creating what you consume to do.

Narrative Fallacy

Humans cannot resist the temptation to string facts together with stories. We can connect anything together, regardless of real causal linkages. This results in a false sense of understanding.

Emotion Glasses

Our emotions always distort reality. To make prudent decisions aligned with goals one must strive to filter emotions from decision making.

Spectrum Thinking

Almost nothing is black or white. Always consider how something fits on a spectrum, as all of reality is grey.

Outcome Dissociation

Self-worth is not coupled with outcomes or results of your work. [Article]

Intuition Fallacy

You should not trust your intuition in areas you know little about. In these situations you should turn to mentors and books to learn what strategies are successful.

Delegate Weakness

It makes no sense to do things you are not good at. Delegate key functions that you can’t do well to other people. Spend as much of your time as possible in your element.

References:
Lazy Leadership / Andrew Wilkerson

The Cook and the Sauce / Wait But Why

Emergent Behaviors

Systems are unique because their sums can exhibit unexpected behaviors that are not present in the parts.

Practice Reliability

Be reliable. Unreliability can cancel out the other virtues.

Loss of Freedom

The two ways you can really lose your freedom are loss of time and loss of reaction.

Focusing illusion

Nothing in life is as important as you think it is while you are thinking about it.

Sustainable practices

If your practices aren’t sustainable, you’re not building something good.

Free will is an illusion

Humans are not individuals, but rather di-viduals. Our choices are largely outcomes of biochemical processes. However, the nature of those biochemical process is defined by unique genes and environmental factors. So while you don’t have free will, your actions are still unique and novel. This means that your choices are still novel.

Design Accountability

Humans need accountability systems to fight against entropy. Design your physical environment and social ties in a way that creates consequences and incentives for your behaviors.

The meaninglessness of life

Life is actually meaningless. There is no law of physics requiring that your life is meaningful. Once you accept this truth you can freely create your own meaning in life. The power to accept the void of emptiness and thrive in spite of that awareness is fundamental to success.

Communication Latency

Often we delay hard conversations to avoid short term pain. A form of akrasia. Be a person who is willing and able to traverse hard topics that no one else will bring up. It is here that you can grow. [Article]

Trust Advantage

The required amount of communication is inversely proportional to the level of pre-established trust between two parties. Trust as a result increases execution velocity.

Disarm with dispassion

Sometimes you’ll need to deal with people that attempt to rattle you and place you on tilt. Turn this tactic against them by acting without emotional reactions. Once you break tranquility you’ve shown they won.

Prioritize freedom

Efforts should be taken to maintain the ability to allocate your time as you like. Losing this degrades happiness.

Choose to be calm

Anger and emotion do not generate useful solutions to problems. Choose to stay calm in all situations. This is the only way to have power over those situations and to work through them.

Solve problems relentlessly

Once you have identified an impediment between you and your goals, you must not tolerate it. Evaporate it from your path with creativity, grit, and effort.

Pressure = Force / Area

You must reject doing everything so that you can do what you want most well. By doing less, you can create something remarkable. [Model]

It is ultimately your fault

When something goes wrong, do not blame others. Traffic did not make you late. You did not leave enough time to account for traffic. The customer is not dumb. You did a poor job explaining your service. Always find ways to reverse engineer a situation to determine how you could have taken proactive measures to avoid the negative situation.

Pain is a growth hack

Hard things, once encountered, allow you to handle harder things. This is true of both work and relationships. Ask the questions you don’t want to. Do what you are afraid of. Choose the hard path. The way to make a hard path an easy path is to consider it in the rearview.

Emergent Self-Interest

In a functional society the pursuit of self interest generally benefits all. In the long run tricksters are exposed and their short term gains are redistributed. Those that channel the human drive to survive to create global usefulness tend to earn the most reward as a byproduct of these efforts.