Drop bad habits, start good habits.

• Good habits:
  • Help you become a better person (“Exhalation“)
  • Help you exploit regularities in the world.
• Bad habits:
  
  • If the outcome is consistently unproductive, drop the habit.
  • If the regularity disappears, drop the habit. (“Complexity — David Krakauer, Part 1“)
  • If the goal changes or there is a better way to achieve it, drop the habit. (“The Inner Game of Tennis“)
• Don’t fight or try to improve old habits, start new ones.

Drop bad habits.

• Don’t blame others.
  • Don’t look for bad guys, don’t assume everyone else is an idiot, don’t assume bad intentions. (“Factfulness“)
  • We like the idea that there’s always someone responsible for any given event, because that helps us make sense of the world. (“Exhalation“)
  • Think. 
• Don’t judge yourself.
  • Judgments become self-fulfilling prophesies. (“The Inner Game of Tennis“)
  • Learning requires trial and error.
  • Observe. 
• Don’t get trapped in negative thinking patterns.
  • It’s easy to get trapped in ongoing, automatic, negative chatter. (“The Happiness Hypothesis“)
  • To still the mind one must learn to put it somewhere (focus). (“The Inner Game of Tennis“)
  • Focus.
• Don’t always rely on instincts and intuitions.
  • Intuitions don’t work well in unpredictable situations where there is no clear and immediate feedback. (“Making Sense — Daniel Kahneman“) 
  • Intuitions filter your attention and make it hard to get the facts right. (“Factfulness“)
  • Analyze.
• Don’t always rely on learning by doing.
  • Avoid dumb mistakes by looking at what others have done. (“Influence“)
  • There are limits to experiential learning: we can’t do it all on our own. (“EconTalk — Agnes Callard“)
  • Complex minds can’t develop on their own. (“Exhalation“)
  • Learn from others. 
• Don’t take on excessive financial obligations. 
  • When things go well, don’t expand your lifestyle to fit your salary. (“How Will You Measure Your Life“) 
  • Moderate.
• Don’t take excessive financial risks.
  • Avoid risks that have potential large, irreversible, unrecoverable losses. (“EconTalk — Nassim Nicholas Taleb (3)“) 
  • Be the last man standing. (“Peter Thiel’s Religion“)
  • Keep playing “the game”.
• Avoid contempt in your relationships.
  • It is the opposite of respect. (“EconTalk — Paul Bloom“)
• Don’t overvalue work.
  • Work is easy to overvalue because it provides immediate feedback and gratification. 
  • Feedback and gratification from family takes much longer to materialize.
  • How you allocate resources (time, money, talent) determines which “businesses” grows (work, family).  (“How Will You Measure Your Life“)
  • Allocate properly.
• Don’t deal with assholes. 
  • Only win/win relationships compound. and optimize for the long term. (“Making Sense — Shane Parrish“)
  • Build trust.
• Don’t compete when you don’t have to. 
  • Cooperate: seek out non-zero sum games where possible. (“Conversations with Tyler — Reid Hoffman”)
  • Reciprocate: when working in a group, return the favor. (“Influence“)
  • Compete: recognize when it is zero sum and you need to compete.
  • Compete to overcome obstacles, not to prove yourself. (“The Inner Game of Tennis“)
  • Play the right game.
• Don’t treat others like you want to be treated.
  • It presumes you know what others like.
  • What you don’t like, don’t do to others (“The User Illusion”).
• Don’t fix things by adding stuff.
  • To reduce harm, it’s easier to remove something than to add something (via negativa) (“Anaerobics“).
  • Simplify.
• Don’t fight unproductive urges. 
  • You probably can’t stop them from emerging (no free will). 
  • It’s easier to stop yourself from acting on it (free won’t) (“The Master and His Emissary“).
  • Control.

Start good habits.

• Figure out what you like and what you’re good at. 
  • Discover your “inner thirst. (“The Inner Game of Tennis“)
  • Find out what your “innate” strengths and interests are. (“The Happiness Hypothesis“)
• Find habits that develop coherent, rewarding skills.
  • Habits that align with your strengths and interests. (“The Happiness Hypothesis“)
  • Habits that provide clear feedback (immediate rewards for progress) are easier to maintain. (“EconTalk — Jordan Peterson“)
  • Habits that build long-term value for you, your family, your community. 
• Figure out your (family) values and stick with them. 
  • (Family) values emerge as you find solutions together.  (“How Will You Measure Your Life“)
  • Decide what you stand for and stand for it all the time.  (“How Will You Measure Your Life“)
  • Make your commitments visible to help ensure consistent behavior. (“Influence“)
    • 100% of the time is easier than 98% of the time.
• Be a producer. (“EconTalk — Venkatesh Rao“)
• Balance, invest, sacrifice.
  • Accept first order negatives (now) for second order positive returns (future). (“Making Sense — Shane Parrish“)
  • Give up something today for the chance to gain something of greater value in the future. (“EconTalk — Jordan Peterson“)
  • Ignore the nagging impulses of the moment (“Peter Thiel’s Religion“)
  • Balance immediate material rewards of making new connections and the longer term intangible benefits of deepening existing connections. (“EconTalk — Chris Arnade“)
  • Having a real relationship, whether with a lover or a child or a pet, requires that you are willing to balance the other party’s wants and needs with your own. (“Exhalation“)
• Learn by doing.
  • Experience precedes knowledge. (“The Inner Game of Tennis“)
  • Experience is incompressible (“Exhalation“)
  • Natural learning requires trial and error.
• Make learning hard, not easy  
  • Spacing, testing, interleaving, etc. (“Range“)
• Meander.  
  • Experiment (early in life) in areas that provide rapid feedback. (“Range“)
  • Apply your existing knowledge in new domains. (“Range“)
• Write.
  • Writing can help you decide what you say before say it.
  • Writing forces you to capture what an idea is and what it isn’t, its complexity. (“EconTalk – Doug Lemov”)

Encourage:

• Curiosity.
  • Be stubbornly curious. (“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman“).
• Open mind.
  • Keep an open mind, release grip of (overly) firm beliefs. (“How to Change Your Mind“)
• (Cognitive) Empathy.
  • In routine situations – see things from their perspective: helps you to reduce negative emotions – cognitive empathy. (“EconTalk — Paul Bloom“)
  • In new situations – imagine using your mind but from their position: helps you to form an opinion – beyond cognitive empathy. (“The Banality of Empathy“)
• Love, friendship.
  • Seek to build relationships that allow what the other person is to maximize. (“EconTalk — Jordan Peterson“)
  • Appreciate the importance of what you do in each specific and individual interaction. (“How Will You Measure Your Life“)

Not for everyone:

• Pursue something that you are passionate about and that would not happen if you would not do it. (“Conversations with Tyler — Peter Thiel“)
• Start small and gain a monopoly in a small market. (“Zero to One“)
• Understand (increase awareness and grasp meaning) to upgrade (self, relationships, decision making). (“Making Sense — Shane Parrish“)