### Advanced principles for clear thinking:

Everything we create, everything we do, it all starts with our thinking. Clear thinking drastically improves odds of success in all departments of career & life. While clear thinking is quite rare, it can be developed with practice.

1) Essence first. Not story. Not analogy.
Most people get seduced by great analogies & exciting stories.

Clear thinkers don’t *form* their thinking via analogies. They identify the essence of the issue, in their specific context. Then, they use analogies as one of their inputs.

2) WAYRTTD.
“What Are You _Really_ Trying To Do” is a simple but powerful tool to make you pause & identify your real goal

Most people move too quickly to How & When to do a given task.  But the task isn’t the goal

Clear thinkers have built a habit of asking themselves WAYRTTD.

3) Message vs. Messenger.
Most people first evaluate the messenger & they don’t evaluate the message enough. The apparent superior/inferior status of the messenger clouds their thinking.

Clear thinkers practice their best to evaluate the message separately from the messenger.

4) Tough to communicate.
When dealing with close choices, most people pick the choice that is less stressful to communicate & reject the choice that will seemingly require a tough conversation.

Clear thinkers resist this bias & communicate the correct choice as kindly as possible.

5) Probabilistic thinking.
Most people think in terms of “X will happen” “Y will not happen”. They are forever locked in the jail of binary thinking.

Clear thinkers see the future as probabilistic. They think in terms of approximate probability that X will/won't happen & decide/act accordingly.

6) Metacognition.
Most people don’t understand much about why they think & feel what they think & feel. They are mere passengers on their own train of thought

Clear thinkers develop a habit of observing their own thinking, analyzing it with curiosity & adapting it accordingly

7) Opportunity cost.
Most people decide what to work on solely by ROI.

ROI = (Value created – Cost of your time) ÷ Cost of your time

For decisions that matter greatly, clear thinkers consider Opportunity Cost.

Opportunity Cost = Value of optimal option – Value of chosen option

8) Ownership mindset.
Most people’s thinking gets clouded by all sorts of noise & drama in their environment.

Clear thinkers approach whatever they choose to work on with an ownership mindset. So they are more focused on the greater goal and they adopt a collaborative approach.

9) Control over ego.
Most people attach their identity to their ideas & thinking. This makes it hard for them to adapt their thinking & see reality as it is.

Clear thinkers are not immune to the ego, but they are able to control it enough so they can iterate towards correctness.

10) Not perfect.
Finally, clear thinkers are aware that they are not perfect. It is often the recognition & reminder of this flaw that gives them greater clarity than others.