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Decision Making Models: 10 Proven Mental Models

mental models

10 Decision Making Models For Life & Business Decisions

Let’s face it, making decisions can be tough. Even worse, the hard decisions usually have the biggest impact on life outcome. I’ve been lucky enough to have success in my business and in my life (with plenty of failures and screwups along the way!).

But, as I’ve “aged gracefully” I’ve come upon 10 Mental Models For Decision Making that really help me live a better life and make better decisions.

Let’s quickly define what a decision making model is, shall we?

Decision making means the process of selecting the best choices among various options.

From Tough Nickel

That’s about as easy as it gets, right? Our goal here is to make the decision making process easier by giving you a model you can follow and use again and again so you don’t have to waste time creating a framework for every decision.

By reading this post and applying these lessons, I believe you can get the results in life you’ve been looking for.

So, let’s go. This post won’t be fluff, just straight to the point about what it takes and how to make decisions.

Decision Making Models: Yes Or No?

The most usual decision we have to make it a yes or a no decision. Do we do the thing or not? This is a binary decision and many of life’s decisions are binary, whether we like it or not.

Do we turn left or right? Do we go back to school now or not? So, the simple formula I like to use now is this one.

I don’t make the decision a YES OR NO, decision. Instead, I ask myself if it’s an EMPHATIC yes or a no. The no is easy. It’s just a no. I don’t want to do that. But there are many things I would like to do that I really don’t have time for.

I run multiple brands so opportunity for me is in excess. I have to keep my options open, but every YES takes away from another area of my life.

That is why when presented with an opportunity, I only say YES if I am truly excited, bursting out the seams, ready to go, etc.

And if it’s not an emphatic yes, it’s a no.

I first heard this idea from Derek Sivers on the Tim Ferriss podcast. Check it out for more on this great decision making model.

Decision Making Models: Ranking On A Scale Of 1-10

We all love the ranking system, right? On a scale of 1 -10, how likely do you want to do something, etc?

It’s a great way for us to gauge our interest in a subject, and crudely, it’s been a way for people to judge the attractiveness of other people. “The guy is a 3 or this woman is a solid 9!”

I’ll use the attractiveness rating scale in order for this to make the most sense, because it’s the easiest to visualize.

The decision making model here is really simple. When rating a person, you can’t give them a 7. 7’s are a copout. That’s basically saying the person is attractive, but not really enough for you to want to ask them out.

Instead, make this the rule. Again, I am talking about attractiveness here, but this can be used to rank school choice, job opportunities, etc.

Get rid of 7 as an option. There are no 7’s… If you think something is a 7, you must instead choose a 6 or an 8.

And think about that in attractiveness. An 8 is WAY different than a 6, right? Use this in conjunction with the emphatic YES concept to make sure you actually make an informed decision.

Read more about this mental model here.

Decision Making Models: The Hard Choice

This is a simple maxim, but it really works. If you are faced with a decision, the right decision is usually the one that is HARDER to do.

Should you go to the gym and workout or stay home and relax on the couch? Which is tougher? Go to the gym!

Should I eat healthily or chow down on bacon cheese fries? Which is harder to do? Eat Healthy!

You really can’t go wrong if you make the harder choice. And here’s the thing. If you don’t make the harder choice now, life will force you to make a harder choice later on, anyway.

If you eat crappy your whole life, you’ll most likely develop diabetes and have heart issues as you get older. Life will force you to cut back on sugar and fats, etc. Make the hard choice now and you’ll never regret it.

Decision Making Models: Delayed Gratification

This goes along with the previous mental model, but whenever possible, delay gratification. Delayed gratification is usually the harder choice as well, but it pays dividends.

You can choose to satisfy yourself now or wait. If you wait, you usually receive compounding benefits.

An easy example is saving money. Sure you can spend money now on things you think you want. But then that money is gone. You have spent it on an item and that item only provides so much value.

If you had invested that money and waited to buy the thing you want, you could have earned enough of a return on your investment for the interest to have paid for the item. In other words, it would be “free” in that sense.

If you get the chance to delay gratification, take it!

Decision Making Models: Time > Money

This is an issue I see in a lot of people. They value their money way more than they do their time. This is because they haven’t looked at how much time they actually have left.

Do yourself a morbid favor. Fill out an actuary table and see when you are statistically most likely to die.

Here’s a good actuary table.

I just did mine again and my life expectancy is 87 years. As of this post, I am 39 years old. If all goes to plan, I have 48 years left. That’s 17,520 days. Not a lot.

If that was all the money you had, wouldn’t you spend it a little wiser? That is why I try to spend my money MORE than I spend my time. I don’t buy cheap stuff that breaks and requires me to replace it often.

I don’t drive all around time looking to save 5 cents per gallon my gas.

I also know that because of my copywriting skills, I can make more money with my time than I can by trying to save money being thrifty.

Remember your time is more valuable than your money.

Decision Making Models: Prioritize Relationships That Matter When You’re 80

This one is simple and one that I have gotten better at as I’ve gotten older. I see this trait in men a lot (including myself). But it’s true for all of us. Many times we get caught up in the busy schedules of life and we prioritize work and “things” over people.

The right decision making model is to prioritize the relationships that will matter the most to you when you’re 80. When you’re 80 years old, your job doesn’t really matter anymore, the PTA doesn’t matter, you often find that most of what you spent your time on was frivolous in many ways.

So, make the choice right now to focus on the people closest to you. Your spouse or significant other, your siblings, children, family, friends, etc. No one gets to their death bed and wishes they worked more.

This also includes focusing and spending time with your parents if they are still around. Even though they most likely won’t’ be there when you’re 80, you’ll have plenty of time to think about them. Make sure you look back on your life knowing you spent as much time with your parents as you possibly could.

Decision Making Models: Family Is More Important Than Opportunity

This goes along with the previous mental model for decision making. When given a choice between family and opportunity, I’ve made the choice to choose family.

Now, this may not be right for you. I haven’t met your family – they could be crazy! But, in general, this goes with my theory that it’s better to prioritize people over profits. Money only does so much and really after a certain amount doesn’t affect your happiness level much.

According to CNBC:

A 2010 study out of Princeton University found that there’s a correlation between happiness and wealth, to a point of about $75,000 per year. When people make more than $75,000 a year, their happiness doesn’t increase, but the lower their income is the worse they feel, the study found.

So, if you have to choose one or the other – choose family. You will be a lot happier in the long run.

Decision Making Models: Outsource As Much As Possible

This is a mental model I’ve had for a long time thanks to my natural business-like personality.

OUTSOURCE EVERYTHING!

If you are presented with a task, you should only do that task if at least one of the following is true:

A. You can’t afford to have someone else do it

B. You are the BEST person to do this job.

C. You will learn something valuable that will help you over the long-term.

D. You get immense satisfaction out of performing the task

If you don’t meet at least one of those criteria, then you should outsource it. Give the task to somebody else that likes doing it or that needs the money. You’re creating jobs that way, which has such an incredible impact on people’s lives.

I know that early on you can’t outsource and that’s fine. But, as soon as you can, start getting rid of as many things as you can. This goes with the Time is greater than Money Mental Model as well.

If you haven’t read the 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss, it’s a great place to start learning all about how to outsource.

Decision Making Models: Process Over Outcome

It takes a while to get used to this decision-making model. But it’s so worth it. This is more about how to prioritize what to focus on and for how long.

The gist is this.

Never concern yourself with the outcome, other than to decide what the best outcome would be and make that into a goal. That’s great and very helpful.

But after that, forget about it. You see, we can’t control the final outcome of anything. Our lives are left up to fate and luck in many ways. Yes, with skill and determination we have a great say in what happens.

But never 100%.

So, I have learned to not put pressure on myself to achieve a certain outcome “no matter what”. Instead, focus on the process.

Focus on what you control. Everything else is an illusion that you create in your own mind to give you a false sense of security. The world is a scary place in many ways. We are like a ship at sea in a violent storm.

All we can do is focus on the process. If we are the ship at sea, we can navigate around the rocks, we can hoist the sails, and prepare the boat… plug holes and hire a great crew. But we can’t control the storm. We can’t control if we hit a rock we can’t see.

The important lesson here is to make decisions where you feel like you will enjoy the process no matter what the outcome is. If you would only do the project IF you get the result you want, then don’t do it.

The goal is that by doing the project or task, the process is enjoyable and educational enough that just gaining the experience is rewarding enough.

Decision Making Models: Invest Like A “PIMP”

I’ve saved the most interesting for last. This is one of the criteria I look for when I’m going to invest in a company or project. Or if I decide to take on a consulting project or not. Because I’m a nut for acronyms, I’ve come up with this (maybe now culturally insensitive) word PIMP.

It helps remind me to look at my investment options with a certain order of ranking. The ranking goes like this:

P – People

I – Idea

M – Market Size

P – Product

Here’s my rationale behind this. Firstly, people are everything. If you put 5 smart people in a room and give them a business model, they’ll most likely make it work. Especially if they are smart, experienced people. So, I’ve got to LOVE the people and believe in them 100%

The idea is very important, but again, not as important as the right people. But, it’s # 2 for me. I want to make sure that the idea of the company makes sense and is exciting. I want to see a BIG IDEA that is attempting to solve a big problem.

Because of my marketing background, I also want to see how the marketing idea plays with the company idea. I like ideas that spark multiple campaigns.

Then there’s market size. Some investors look at this as a really big deal. Obviously, I like to see an addressable market to start with, but I don’t always have to see a MASSIVE market. My reasoning for this is simple.

We never really know the market size. Think about Facebook. When it started the market size was Harvard, then other Universities, then basically the world. Very few investors could have ever know the that total addressable market for Facebook was everyone with an internet connection or smartphone.

As a matter of fact, smartphones didn’t even exist when Facebook started up, so no one could have predicted it.

Same with the automobile.

My point is a great product aimed at the right people will eventually find or create a large market. But, I do like to see at least some addressable market so it’s not a complete moon shot.

And finally, we have the product. Why is this last for me? Basically, because the product can always be fixed and updated. Once you start selling into the market, you’ll get lots of customer feedback and they will let you know what they want.

I’ve seen this firsthand with Roam Research. The user community has helped take the product to incredible heights. So, I look for a good product and a good idea, but it doesn’t have to impress me at first.

I know it will get better over time.

Final Thoughts

I hope you enjoyed this post. It’s always important to think about thinking. Become aware. Use these mental models to guide you as you face decisions.

The other benefit to having mental models is found in a test question I’ve seen:

What effect do mental models have on the decision-making process?

Answer: They allow decision makers to maximize the potential of their decision making.

This is key. You want to maximize your decisions always. You can do this by having a chosen framework you use when it comes time to decide. If you know that you always make the harder choice, think about how easy it becomes to make a lot of decisions.

This is how you create habits. Create a system that basically does the work for you. Over time, you won’t even think about it. It will become the way you are.

What sort of decisions are you facing right now? Leave a comment and ask away and we can work together on what decision making models are right for you.

Also please consider sharing this post on social media if you like it. 🙂

How To Apply What You Learn (Part 5 In Note Taking Series)

notes, mental models, metalearning, productivity

We have finally reached the end of this series on how to take good notes. The final edition of this series will focus on how to apply what you have learned and notated during the previous four steps.

I will attempt to keep this post shorter if I can, however, I am not known for brevity.

Here’s a quick reference guide to take you back to the first 4 parts in case you missed those:

Part 1 – The META Method
Part 2 – The 6 Areas Of Knowledge Extraction
Part 3 – Reflection During & After The Note Taking Process
Part 4 – How To Take Evergreen Notes

How To Apply What You Learn

The main focus on this article is on application. The previous articles have prepared you for the note taking process in general. Now, we’re going to talk about how to actually use the knowledge you have gained through your note taking skills.

In essence there are three areas you are going to focus on now that you have completed the reading, study, and note taking process.

Here’s the three areas you will want to focus on to actually apply what you learn:

Let’s look at each of these 3 steps in greater detail so you can put them to immediate use.

How To Apply What You Learn: Practice

You probably have a lot of new information in your mind now. You may have created some Anki cards, you may have even created evergreen notes for yourself. All that is great, but it really isn’t using the information in the “real world”.

That is where practice comes into play.

You want to focus on 3 different areas of Practice:

  • Form
  • Retention
  • Understanding

Form applies more to physical skills you are learning such as dancing or karate, for example. You want to practice the movements over and over again. Repitition is the key to creating muscle memory and therefore your ability to use your skills in real life situations.

Form also applies outside of the physical realm. For example, you can conduct thought experiments every day for 30 days about the new topic you are learning. Here’s a video to learn more about how to conduct thought experiments

When you conduct these thought experiments you want to really focus on thinking through all the possible outcomes that may occur and both ask questions and answer those questions.

This is such a powerful way to grow your mental ability to think through problems and really apply what you are learning.

If you want a great read on Mental Models, check out the book by Shane Parrish.

Next we’ll look again at Retention. Retention isn’t really the problem. Most of what you have read or watched or listened to is actually in your brain. The problem is that you have to recall it.

It’s sort of like we know we saved the file somewhere on our hard drive, but we just can’t remember what folder it’s in. The solution here is to store the data in a way that you are most likely to retrieve it.

This means linking, thinking, shrinking and winking.

Link together ideas. Bind them. Compare them to other things you have learned.

Think through abstract ideas and turn them into as tangible of a concept as you possibly can. This means creating metaphors, similies, and stories that help you easier recall information.

Shrink means to minimize the amount of information or data you are trying to remember and use to it’s bare essence. It’s easier to remember one person, one date, one historical fact then it is to remember 20 in one “chunk”. So, you want to shrink down the size of the chunks into memorable pieces.

This is also where story and emotion come into play. The stronger the emotional appeal, ht more likely you are to recall it. I call this ‘winking” because you want to make it playful. Also, think about flirting. You are much more likely to remember a flirty conversation than a business talk. By winking to yourself, you increase the odds of being able to later recall what you have learned.

Finally, let’s look at Understanding. This is a pretty simple aspect of Practice. You want to make sure to practice your newfound knowledge on other people. Talk to them and teach them what you have learned. You will quickly find gaps of knowledge and that’s good.

Now you can go back and study those areas and come back and teach again to see if you finally fully understand the full topic.

How To Apply What You Learn: Analysis

An analysis is the continued study of material you have learned or acquired. You want to always be analyzing what you have read and learned previously.

One reason for this is that a lot of informaiton is unreliable. Unfortunately, we are fed data from the internet, from wikipedia, from friends, and books that may not be accurate. We can achieve a higher rate of data accuracy by consuming more information.

This, of course, isn’t easy and takes up more time. But it is very important. The more data you have at your fingertips, the more you can analyze and decipher.

Another core component to analysis is to continue to break down all theories or hypothesizes to their bare essentials. You ultimately want to be able to focus on one aspect of an idea… the core idea or main belief you are to add to your belief backlog.

This goes well with the Practice step as well. You want to convert large ideological chunks into malleable pieces and blocks of knowledge. Knowledge blocks are easier to contain, control, and confirm.

And they are much easier to build upon. Here’s a great read on knowledge building blocks by Tiago Forte.

How To Apply What You Learn: Synthesis

And that brings us to the final step to apply what you learn. The great and powerful synthesis. Here’s a good working definition of syntheses from Google:

The combination of ideas to form a theory or system.

Defintion of Synthesis

I love that defintion because that is what must be done to turn knowledge into application. In this step, the goal is to take what you have learned from your continued analysis and start combining it into other ideas or concepts you have learned or created.

It is literally the act of creating new knowledge from old knowledge. The interesting part is you don’t have to necessarily even create or discover anything new. Rather, you are putting together different areas of knowledge that perhaps haven’t been connected yet.

As an example, I have created a series of 5 blog posts on How To Take Good Notes and there really isn’t anything “new” I have added other than coming up with interesting words and phrases to explain ideas first discovered or shared by others. From the META Method to Practice, Analysis, Synthesis... these ideas are not my own, but the branding is.

It’s equivalent to white labeling a product. You can modify the product slightly, but mostly you are creating new packaging and new marketing. Call it White Labeling Ideas. By adding multiple ideas together and explaining it in a new way, you have in essence creating a new product by white labeling the ideas of others.

Here’s a quick description of white labeling from SmartyAds:

“White labeling is producing the products and services and their further rebranding and advertising under another brand’s name. The aim of it is increasing customer loyalty and trust, saving resources and time necessary for new the new solution development and deployment.”

Of course, also give contribution to where your ideas came from. There are entire books that are nothing more than the white labeling of other people’s ideas.

And by this art of synthesis, you will also end up creating your own unique ideas, theories, and systems, but that’s just a side benefit. In the end, your ability to speak clearly on a wide range of topics, your ability to write and explain your thoughts with clarity, and the amount of knowledge you can apply to your life is worth all the effort you have put in.

I hope you have enjoyed this series as much as I’ve enjoyed writing it. As always, please leave comments below and also make sure you follow me on Twitter for more info around notes, productivity, business, and more.

My Twitter –> Michael Giannulis

5 Mental Models To Gather & Apply Wisdom

metalearning, mental models, productivity


5 Mental Models


Different mental models help us to make sense of the world around us. This post covers 5 Mental Models you can use to gather and apply wisdom.

They can also be used to provide us with tools to gather wisdom and apply it. In this article, we will briefly cover 5 different mental models that can help you not only to become a better learner, but also a better doer. Let’s begin with the 1st mental model.

The first mental model is to think of yourself first and foremost as a lifelong learner.
Lifelong learning is truly one of the most important mental models we can develop because it puts us in the driver’s seat. We are in control because if there’s something we don’t know, we at least know we can go and figure it out.

Lifelong learning is where it’s at. To walk down that path requires a deep-seated humility about what’s knowable and what each of us knows. What’s knowable refers to all those things in the world that others have already figured out, or at least labeled in some way. What each of us knows speaks to our human limitation. Unfortunately, we can never know everything. We are finite beings with a finite mind. We have to face up to this reality while still striving to remain a lifelong learner knowing that our job is never done.

Now, there are times when learning gets tough. We’ve all been stuck on a problem and unsure how to proceed. It can be very frustrating to work on a problem and be unsure how to resolve it or more forward. In these circumstances, you need to use the 2nd Mental model which is paramount to your becoming a better learner.

This mental model is known as the Einstein Model because believe it or not, even geniuses like Einstein got stuck dealing with problems that he couldn’t solve.
Thankfully, he had an approach to help him when he got stuck on a seemingly unsolvable problem.

Albert Einstein put it this way: “I take time to go for long walks on the beach so that I can listen to what is going on inside my head. If my work isn’t going well, I lie down in the middle of a workday and gaze at the ceiling while** I listen and visualize what goes on in my imagination.”

That is such a huge key. Listening to what is going on in your imagination unlocks the door to a world of new discovery that may have been hidden away from you previously. It’s a true secret mental model you need in your arsenal.

The third mental model has everything to do with assumptions. As you learn more and become wiser, you want to make sure you don’t fall guilty to the idea of always being right.
In fact, the smarter you are, the more likely you are to fall into this trap. A very smart guy by all accounts is Elon Musk. He has a mental model for dealing with this.

Tesla’s Elon Musk describes his everyday stance as, “You should take the approach that you’re wrong. Your goal is to be less wrong.” The physicist James Clerk Maxwell described it as a “thoroughly conscious ignorance—the prelude to every real advance in science.”
So remember you should never assume that you’re right. In fact, assume the opposite. Most of the human error comes from the wrong people thinking they’re right.


By approaching the world as if you’re wrong, you will become more humble and be less apt to make mistakes of ego. And besides all that, it’s best to think of human intelligence not as what is going on IN your brain, but as what is going on outside your brain.

Because the reality is, our thinking is really part of a bigger picture. And that brings us to the 4th Mental Model. This model helps to tame the ego even more than the idea of assuming you’re wrong.

This Mental Model is called “The Brain”.

It operates on the assumption that human intelligence isn’t within your brain. It’s actually outside in the civilization around us. Her’s another way to think about it.

Human intelligence is largely externalized, contained not in our brain but in our civilization. We are our tools — our brains are modules in a cognitive system much larger than ourselves. A system that is already self-improving, and has been for a long time.
And none of this matters if you don’t take action on these mental models.

Which brings us to the 5th and final Mental Model. The mental model is the most important one of all because without it you won’t actually follow through on the other 4 Mental Models.

This mental model has to do with discipline and actually getting things done.

You’ve got to rely heavily on self-discipline. This is the mental model that strings all the others together. And it’s massively important to your success. Too many wait around for emotions (read: motivation) before they want to get started or keep acquiring knowledge.

Self-discipline is the ultimate mental model because by using is power wisely, you will unlock all the other mental models to guide you through the rest of your life. It was said best by the late, great, Jim Rohn.

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishment.” ~Jim Rohn

About this post. This post was written "LIVE" on the Building A Second Brain course featuring Tiago Forte and David Perell.
There are several notes taken directly from David which he provided as part of the class. Hope you enjoyed it and make sure you check out BASB and Write Of Passage.

This entire post was written in less than an hour using random notes pulled from David's Evernote file.