Ask HN: How do you train thinking ahead? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you train thinking ahead?

6 pointsdnlre3 comments

I often find myself lacking the ability to think a few steps ahead at work, but also in simple everyday things. Sometimes I think people either do it naturally (because they're intelligent and their brains somehow just work that way) or they don't. Do you have any ideas on how to train this kind of thinking so that it becomes second nature?

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I've found playing Magic the Gathering improves my ability on this. There is chess, too...but IMO you encounter more novel situations more often in MTG where things will cost you. It's interesting in the sense that sometimes things proceed in a very straight forward manner, but usually (sometimes unknowingly, if you're not careful) there are several branches to take, and doing things just slightly sub-optimally will cost you big in the end. Some games every decision is crucial...do a mulligan this hand knowing what he's playing, I can play 3 different lands on turn one, but which one best sets me up for how this match is likely to proceed, etc. I still don't think I'm naturally good at this, but I've noticed I've been able to better force myself into a mindset to be very deliberate for short periods on account of it.

It depends on the subject matter.

For many subjects you can record metrics that can be analyzed over time and then use statistical techniques to predict future values for those metrics.

The question then becomes inferring what may / will happen if the metrics hit their predicted values.

Then you have second and third order effects that come from the predicted first order effects. That is, if metric X hits the predicted value and Y occurs as a result, what will party A do as a result? or how will Z be impacted?

>> Do you have any ideas on how to train this kind of thinking so that it becomes second nature?

Practice. You must track and analyze the metrics data and practice making predictions and doing analysis.

It is very subject-dependant. Predicting the weather is quite different from predicting stock markets which is quite different from predicting geo-politics.

Just like you train any other skill - by doing it.

Whatever decision you’re facing - build a decision tree as far as it makes sense and actually depends on your input. By asking a tree of “what if” questions or something like that.

In a nutshell it’s a risk management

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