Mental model examples and their explanations

This piece isn't even shallow or thin. It is beyond that. Outside of categories like that.

It is empty calories. It might taste like knowledge or wisdom, but is just sludge plus aroma.

I even think it can't be saved nor edited. That it is lacking the necessary deep substance. And no. Imho it by far isn't destilled knowledge from many sources.

I feel it is but a bad facsimile of wisdom. Industrialized (SEO) fast food for the brain.

Edit: After clicking further into the site I just realized that this blog post (like many others) is just a piece in the content marketing puzzle. It is just enough to pull in organic search traffic for self optimization and self help people to feed them into the site's funnel for the expected "Never procrastinate again" Notion Dashboard that is sold by the site.

Are these "models"? They sound more like principles/tactics. Perhaps I'm being pedantic, but I say this because I've been thinking a lot lately about what I consider to be mental models: A fleshed-out mental image of the way a real-life thing works.

It took me a while to fully grasp the benefit of that definition of a mental model: Once you have formed a strong mental image of how a thing works or how a situation should be, you have a powerful ability to compare and notice when things are out of alignment with that mental model, and can even notice this misalignment subconsciously.

If the misalignment is because your mental model is wrong or incomplete, it's a great learning opportunity. If the misalignment is because something is wrong with the situation, you're more likely to spot problems that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.

Anyway, to the article: Some good principles here (I currently follow a number of them), but mostly just a summary without much detail.

Ugh, the vapidity is off the charts here. Mental models don’t make you successful, they may be useful to give perspective in specific scenarios, but not in a context-free listicle.

What can you make you successful is focus on deep understanding and solving of non-trivial problems. This article can only scatter your focus and disrupt the necessary mindset.

This is a pretty useful list of tools to understand the world. I find the explanations to be lacking. There's a lot I could say about all of them, but I'll pick one as an example.

Antifragility.

The concept is good. The explanation limits it. There's nothing wrong with planning a long career in one place, as long as you have a backup plan. The italics is the key. The mindset is the world is fragile. Things can happen.

For me specifically:

I can't work a job that lacks structure or has variable income without severe consequences for my mental health. That doesn't mean I can't use this mental model. I know my job could end any day, but that's unlikely. So I live below my income and save as much as I can. Times between jobs can get stressful, but not desperate.

You have to sift out a lot of junk from this article, to get at the useful points. It would benefit from some editing.

> “It’s usually easier to make something 10x better than it is to make it 10% better"

This is not 'usually' the case. Usually, the exact opposite is true.

Don't expect to come away with much from this list.

The very first model listed in the article, "antifragile", is so threadbare that it misses the lesson entirely. There are no implications, no real world examples. Zero guidance in how to use it. The entire point of learning the concept is missing.

I would have expected a call out about supply chains or how fragile systems break down, maybe even how to fix them, but there's nothing.

This page is like a dictionary definition of terms, but worse. If this is your first time encountering these concepts, you'll come back with some fancy lingo and no idea what it really means. That's a disservice to important concepts.

Take the subjects and Google them.

The most important mental model of all: recognizing the boundaries of these models. It's just as important to know when a mental model is not appropriate or applicable as it is to apply the mental model.

Cool list. I find this way better than some blogspam with lots of fluff. After reading it, I feel like I gained a basic understanding of each point. Very refreshing.

I'm a little surprised by the sentiment here in the comments. The author's intent is to present an index of mental models with succinct descriptions simple graphics (and sure, some SEO/profit motives).

I recognize more than half of these and they are quite influential in my decision making. I could spend hours describing scenarios I've successfully navigated using some of these "cognitive code blocks."

Quite funny that "inverse thinking" is mentioned and I actually registered thinkinverse.com years ago when I was considering starting a blog on mental modeling. I still renew it because I may still start that blog.

A few days ago I had a long conversation with a friend about performance plateaus. I didn't know about the "Fosbury Flop" which is a perfect example.

If you find this collection shallow (which again, I believe is the author's objective), perhaps you have a strong set of cognitive and emotional skills and this is not particularly valuable to you at this time. However I question some of the more poignant reactions in this thread, and I encourage some introspection as to the merit of the criticism.

Maybe this is why I haven't started the blog yet.

Several of these are not exactly what I would consider mental models, more life hacks or bias training. For me a mental model is a framework or paradigm that you use to make sense of the world around you. It isn't always for making decisions, perhaps it's to avoid anxiety or even to figure out how to live at peace with your alt-right neighbor.

Some of mine are:

1. Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence. The modern world is an unbelievably complex network of individuals and incentives. Rarely can you trace a discernible pattern beyond two interactions. So if the level of complexity in your conspiracy theory requires more than two jumps it's likely unfounded. Cartels are unstable.

2. Human beings are hard wired to rationalize their worldview instead of picking a rational worldview. A trait of ours is that we're capable of making a logically consistent argument to validate anything and this is not a new phenomenon. The ancients were just as capable at this as we are today.

Articles like this often inspire wishful thinking (aka - if I bookmark this page or highlight its content, I know have access to all the mental models).

I find mental models like knowledge in general - useful only if you can find the relevant entry *when needed*. They're not useful if just collected on a shelf but ingrained into memory and lived as everyday live. That being said, first step of ingraining useful mental models is to write them down (hence, [my mental models](https://kevinslin.com/notes/LMpLWbLBIfRzkSjJlF7U1)).

I wonder if anyone here has a good mental model of a calendar?

I find I keep getting dates wrong when I book stuff. I recently booked a flight on the wrong date on Google Flights and booked a train ticket on the wrong date in Europe.

Part of it is due to poorly designed UIs on mobile. Then there’s just me not having a good sense of today’s date and day of week (I often don’t know what day of week it is). So unless I really slow down and double check, I keep making mistakes when it comes to dates.

I wonder if I just have a poor mental model of time and dates, or maybe I’m just not super aware.

Is this author successful already?

If the author is not successful in some way, then why should I bother taking this persons advice?

The successful people I know don’t write vapid listicles on how to be successful.

I still go back to the article[0] on mental models by FS (Farnam Street) whenever I need a refresher. It is complete and to the point.

[0] https://fs.blog/mental-models/

So thin.

This is like the horoscope section from Teen Vogue but for a monitor-tan fad chasing audience who twice a year loses most of his savings to a new Ponzi scheme targeting redditors.

Ok, this is obviously a very shallow reading, but I can see myself coming back to it in moments of need to find new perspectives.

Light and refreshing post. Also some cool graphics that I printed as just little mental reminders.

Nothing will make me successful

Mental models? These are just a random assortment of ideas.