I’d focus more on getting effective more than reducing or managing biases. The latter often serves the former, but I think the answers come fairly directly if you start there.
I see most of the methods you list as general process improvement methods whether or not they actually improve intuition.
An alternative to improving your intuition and removing your biases would be to find other and better processes and tools to rely on. And then actually use them.
That last part is probably the main failing. We all have a boatload of good ideas that would make us a zillion times more effective if we actually used them.
How often do you plan? How often do you monitor your plans? Measure the results? Provide summary statistics? Do you avail yourself of any tools to do this?
For probably a couple of decades now, I’ve wanted some planning software where I input goals, utilities, activities, and results, and the software plans my day, makes suggestions, tracks progress on those goals, and charts overall utility.
I bet that pencil and paper process monitoring would be a huge advance. Yet I don’t do it. I don’t need a lot of fancy research about process monitoring to improve, I need to do it.
I would think this is true for most everyone here. We indulge our enjoyment of thinking, and fell justified in doing so, when it really isn’t much different than watching porn. Mental masturbation. Wank wank wank, instead of getting things done. It’s actually a bit worse than porn, because we feel justified when we mentally wank, we feel we’re accomplishing something respectable, and for the most part, society agrees.
An alternative to improving your intuition and removing your biases would be to find other and better processes and tools to rely on. And then actually use them.
I think that is part of what I was attempting to get at, though I probably didn’t do a very good job. In a sense we are biased to use certain processes or tools. The only way to change those “default settings” is to deliberately practice something better, so that when the time comes, you’ll be ready.
Some places, the “deliberate practice” idea breaks down, choosing and decision making is one of them. There is no way to “practice” them except by actually making chooses and decisions; separating practice from normal execution is not possible.
I agree that the only way to practice decisions is to make them, but I think there is more to it than that. The deliberate part of deliberate practice is that you are actively trying to get better. The deliberate performance paper I linked to touches on this a bit, in that deliberate practice is challenging for professionals and that something else might work better (they advocate the first 5 methods in that paper).
Beyond making decisions, you need to have an expectation of what will happen, otherwise hindsight bias is that much harder to overcome. It’s the scientific method: hypothesis->test->new hypothesis. Without defining what you expect ahead of time, it is much easier to just say “Oh yeah, this makes sense” and normalize without actually improving understanding.
I don’t disagree with anything in this comment, I was just pointing out that “deliberate practice” has several requirements, including practice being separate from execution, that makes it less usable, or even totally unusable, for some areas, such as decision making and choosing. The other main requirements are that it has a specific goal, should not be enjoyable and, as you pointed out, that is is challenging. Another thing, that is not part of the original requirements but is encompassed by them, is that you are not practicing when you are in “flow”.
For probably a couple of decades now, I’ve wanted some planning software where I input goals, utilities, activities, and results, and the software plans my day, makes suggestions, tracks progress on those goals, and charts overall utility.
For probably a couple of decades now, I’ve wanted some planning software where I input goals, utilities, activities, and results, and the software plans my day, makes suggestions, tracks progress on those goals, and charts overall utility.
tracks progress on those goals, and charts overall utility.
I don’t think it works very well for what you are envisioning, but something like spaced repetition software might help.
With SRS, the idea is that the software tries to figure out when you are going to forget something and prompts you at that time, when the reminder will be most effective.
I’d focus more on getting effective more than reducing or managing biases. The latter often serves the former, but I think the answers come fairly directly if you start there.
I see most of the methods you list as general process improvement methods whether or not they actually improve intuition.
An alternative to improving your intuition and removing your biases would be to find other and better processes and tools to rely on. And then actually use them.
That last part is probably the main failing. We all have a boatload of good ideas that would make us a zillion times more effective if we actually used them.
How often do you plan? How often do you monitor your plans? Measure the results? Provide summary statistics? Do you avail yourself of any tools to do this?
For probably a couple of decades now, I’ve wanted some planning software where I input goals, utilities, activities, and results, and the software plans my day, makes suggestions, tracks progress on those goals, and charts overall utility.
I bet that pencil and paper process monitoring would be a huge advance. Yet I don’t do it. I don’t need a lot of fancy research about process monitoring to improve, I need to do it.
I would think this is true for most everyone here. We indulge our enjoyment of thinking, and fell justified in doing so, when it really isn’t much different than watching porn. Mental masturbation. Wank wank wank, instead of getting things done. It’s actually a bit worse than porn, because we feel justified when we mentally wank, we feel we’re accomplishing something respectable, and for the most part, society agrees.
I think that is part of what I was attempting to get at, though I probably didn’t do a very good job. In a sense we are biased to use certain processes or tools. The only way to change those “default settings” is to deliberately practice something better, so that when the time comes, you’ll be ready.
The time has always come. The time is now.
Any particular skill is small potatoes compared to establishing a general continuing practice of planning, monitoring, and executing.
Some places, the “deliberate practice” idea breaks down, choosing and decision making is one of them. There is no way to “practice” them except by actually making chooses and decisions; separating practice from normal execution is not possible.
I agree that the only way to practice decisions is to make them, but I think there is more to it than that. The deliberate part of deliberate practice is that you are actively trying to get better. The deliberate performance paper I linked to touches on this a bit, in that deliberate practice is challenging for professionals and that something else might work better (they advocate the first 5 methods in that paper).
Beyond making decisions, you need to have an expectation of what will happen, otherwise hindsight bias is that much harder to overcome. It’s the scientific method: hypothesis->test->new hypothesis. Without defining what you expect ahead of time, it is much easier to just say “Oh yeah, this makes sense” and normalize without actually improving understanding.
I don’t disagree with anything in this comment, I was just pointing out that “deliberate practice” has several requirements, including practice being separate from execution, that makes it less usable, or even totally unusable, for some areas, such as decision making and choosing. The other main requirements are that it has a specific goal, should not be enjoyable and, as you pointed out, that is is challenging. Another thing, that is not part of the original requirements but is encompassed by them, is that you are not practicing when you are in “flow”.
What’s out there like this?
Personal Assistants.
I don’t think it works very well for what you are envisioning, but something like spaced repetition software might help.
With SRS, the idea is that the software tries to figure out when you are going to forget something and prompts you at that time, when the reminder will be most effective.