Mental Models

One of the most important concepts I learned in 2019 was mental models. I first heard of them through Brandon Chu’s, The Black Box of Product Management. But the concept goes beyond just PM.

I believe what seperates good PMs from great ones is their ability to make decisions. Product Managers make a ton of decisions everyday. The great ones make the right decision, quickly, and with low information. Comparing the upside vs the downside of the right vs the wrong decision is non-trivial, and this compounds over time.

Now, imagine this with your personal life. We make many decisions everyday, big and small. Thus, better decsion making can help anyone. Better decision making means higher quality results. And higher quality results mean a better life.

Mental models inform your decisions. They are an information sieve; seperating the signal from the noise. There’s a lot of noise in our world, and having a lattice-work of mental models from a variety of fields, will serve to inform your decision making in all sorts of situations.

For the next week, I’ll be sharing 7 mental models I use from 7 different field.

In the meantime, what are your favorite mental models?