How to Take Smart Notes

Insight: Charlie Munger describes someone as world-wise when they have a broad set of thinking tools and know how to apply them.

Insight: Charlie Munger stresses the importance of having a broad theoretical toolbox - mental models - and good grip on reality.

Insight: Charlie Munger advocates looking for the most powerful concepts from all disciplines and understanding them deeply so that they become part of our models of thinking.

Insight: We gain what Munger calls "worldly wisdom" when we start to attach our experiences to mental models.

Insight: A wide set of mental models is, according to Munger, the cure to the proverbial man with a hammer who sees nails everywhere.

• Insight: Poorly performing students often feel more successful/smarter than they are, until tested.
• Insight: Poor performers lack the insight into their own limitations.
• Insight: Ignorance breeds confidence.

• Definition: A temporary reduction in one's capacity to exercise action, caused by prior use of volition.
• Insight: Using willpower to get things done is not a good long term strategy.
• Insight: The research on willpower and ego depletion is mixed.
• Insight: Willpower is often compared to muscles - a limited resource that depletes and needs time to recover.
• Reference: Baumeister et al, 1998: "Our results suggest that a broad assortment of actions make use of the same resource. Acts of self-control, responsible decision making, and active choice seem to interfere with other such acts that follow soon after. The implication is that some vital resource of the self becomes depleted by such acts of volition. To be sure, we assume that this resource is commonly replenished, although the factors that might hasten or delay the replenishment remain unknown, along with the precise nature of this resource."

• Insight: Seeking feedback is important for anyone with a growth mindset.
• Insight: A growth mindset is key to long-term success and happiness.
• Insight: A growth mindset means to derive pleasure from improving, rather than being praised.

• Insight: We largely live in a culture where more choice is regarded as good, but not having to make choices is liberating.
• Insight: Not having to make choices can unleash energy and resources that would be used to making those choices.
• Reference: Barry Schwartz: less choice can increase productivity, but also our freedom, and happiness.

• Reference: Mathematician Abraham Wald: During WWII he was asked by the RAF to analyse planes that had flown in battle to see where the most bullet holes were, so that these areas could be reinforced. He quickly realised that what was not being taken into account was the planes that didn't make it back (the RAF had made a survivorship bias). He then made the recommendation to reinforce areas where the planes had no bullet holes, as these were most likely to be the vulnerable areas - where the planes that didn't make it back had been shot.

• Definition: Open tasks occupy our short term memory, until they are done.
• Insight: Our minds get easily distracted.
• Insight: The way we organise information can impact our long and short term memories.
• Insight: We don't have to complete tasks to stop thinking about them. We just need to write them down with a clear plan.
• Insight: We can't do everything at once. We need a robust external system to manage our tasks and thoughts.
• Insight: We can use the Zeigarnik Effect to our advantage by keeping unanswered questions in our minds, and letting our thoughts try to solve the question. This is why we seem to think of the answers to many challenges in casual situations.