Make better decisions by thinking about your thinking
Hello and Happy Monday!
This was an interesting weekend in applying the principles I explore in this newsletter, specifically last week’s idea of managing stress, and letting go of things I don’t control. With three kids, some of whom have five concurrent sports/clubs, my weekends are busy! Throw in a sleepover and a school-sponsored event, and it’s a wonder there’s time to eat, much less find time to write this newsletter.
I applied techniques like keep the schedule, change the scope; some of the events had fixed schedules, so I had to adjust the scope of what I could achieve in between.
I also kept in mind that I’ll always have problems, so instead of getting frustrated at everything I needed to do, I worked hard to be present and enjoy whatever I was doing.
I got nowhere near to the end of my planned to-do list, but I survived with my sanity intact, and I was cheering on the kids at every game. I’ll call that a win.
Nothing like kids to challenge you and help you grow 😆
Kevin
PS - If you didn't see this in last week's newsletter, I'm asking for your feedback via this four question survey here: https://forms.gle/dgwQKbYMRiDgFwvN7. Please take a moment and guide the future of this newsletter to make sure it stays valuable to you!
A Quote
“
...the effective executive also knows that people do not start out with the search for facts. They start out with an opinion. There is nothing wrong with this. People experienced in an area should be expected to have an opinion. Not to have an opinion after having been exposed to an area for a good long time would argue an unobservant eye and a sluggish mind.
— Peter Drucker, "The Effective Executive"
Three Things
1 - ⛵️ The Wager - I devoured this historical non-fiction book about the HMS Wager. The British crew sailed from England in 1740 and wrecked off the Western coast of Chile, stranding the crew on what is now called Wager Island. The entire trip was brutal; from scurvy and storms at sea, to surviving winter conditions with little sustenance on the island. Through different circuitous routes, many of the survivors eventually made it back to England. This book gave me a ton of fascinating stories to share around the dinner table.
2 - 🕰️ Author Clock - First there was analog, then digital, and now - prose.
3 - 🤖 Teenage Engineering - As one of my children has started exploring music production, I’ve been introduced to all sorts of things for the first time. Even if, like me, these objects are foreign to you, you can’t help but be impressed with how beautiful and intricate they are.
Deeper Dive on Thinking about Thinking
Today I’m going to explore the concept of metacognition - or thinking about thinking.
I’ll share a model of the four different layers of thinking and doing. I’ll show you how to shift between layers. I’ll show you how metacognition helps mitigate against cognitive biases and improve decision making. And finally I’ll show some techniques to improve your metacognitive ability.
Sound fun? Then read on!
Introducing the Model
My model has four states that I’ll reference; doing, reacting, thinking, and thinking about thinking.
Doing - This is your physical body doing things. Washing hands. Putting on shoes. Walking down the street.
Reacting - This is your subconscious layer. It’s jumping when you hear a bang. It’s moving your hand away from heat.
Thinking - This is your conscious layer, also called cognition. You probably don’t need me to share examples of this!
Thinking About Thinking - This is where you understand, analyze, and regulate your conscious layer - also called metacognition. It’s where you notice and ask why you’re thinking what you think.
Take a look back at the newsletter, “You have the most to learn from ‘idiots’”, if you want to read further on the subconscious and conscious layers. I called them System 1 and System 2, borrowing language from Daniel Kahneman.
How the layers influence each other
Each layer interacts with and influences the other layers it connects to.
Most animals operate predominantly in the first two layers; doing stuff, and reacting to stuff. Think of a herd animal in a field. It’s contentedly munching on grass. A predator leaps out of the tall grass, and the herd animal takes off at a sprint. Once clear of the predator, it goes back to munching on grass.
Humans spend a lot of time thinking. We engage our conscious processing to solve hard problems. This allows us to re-train our reactions. We can influence our doing layer and take different actions.
In the classic explanation, whereas the herd animal hears a bang and takes off running, humans engage our conscious processing and know the bang came from the tractor, and stay put.
We’re also capable of taking things one step further, into thinking about our thinking. This is the highest level, and it’s the only way to influence your own thinking. Just like thinking is required to re-train your reactions, thinking about thinking is required to retrain your thinking.
If you have any sort of commute - or remember back when you did - you probably spent time thinking. You’d process your day. You’d think about the problems you need to solve. You’d think about people’s actions and derive meaning.
Metacognition is where you become conscious of that thinking. You can ask whether the thinking serves you. You can look for different ways to think about the same facts or the same problem. You can use these insights to redirect your thinking into different actions.
This model is interesting, but how is it impactful? How can we use this to our advantage?
Metacognition protects us against cognitive biases
Since metacognition influences our thinking, understanding it gives us an edge on improving our thinking.
To narrow that down, think about cognitive biases. A cognitive bias means our cognition - our thinking - is skewed, or biased. Our thinking is imperfect and our brains tend to be lazy. Intentionally engaging in metacognition helps you catch these biases and limit their ability to negatively impact you.
Think of confirmation bias, which is where our brains have a tendency to search for and favor information that confirms our preexisting beliefs. If we stay in our thinking layer, we’ll be blind to this. By engaging the metacognitive layer, we can recognize confirmation bias, and work to balance it.
Another is the availability bias, where we overestimate the importance of information that’s readily available to us. By engaging the metacognitive layer, we can become aware of this and search out more balanced information.
Cognitive biases are super interesting and fun, but I’ll stop with these two. We’ll explore biases more over time!
Metacognition improves our decision making
One positive effect of improving our protection against cognitive biases is improved decision making!
To make a decision you have to think. You look at information and come to a judgment. All sorts of cognitive biases come into play, but they’re typically unconscious. You’re not aware why you’re thinking what you’re thinking, you’re just aware that you’re thinking it.
This is why two people can look at the same problem and come to different conclusions. We run information through all sorts of filters, make different assumptions, and come to different conclusions.
Metacognition is where you can think about how you’re thinking, and look for holes in the logic. You can look for biases. You start to see the filters and assumptions and how they drive people to different conclusions.
The net effect is more robust decision making.
Use the awareness to shift layers
Once you understand this model you can become more conscious of shifting layers as needed, going from thinking to doing, or from doing up to thinking, etc.
Rumination is an example of getting stuck in the thinking layer. Rumination is where you go through the same thoughts over and over again. If you ever find yourself in this pattern, you can shift up to thinking about thinking to recognize the pattern. Or you can shift back down into doing to break the cycle.
This is why a common intervention for a panic attack of anxiety is to get the person back to into the doing layer. Focus on breathing. Ask the person to engage their senses by asking what they can see, hear, taste, or touch. You get them to do some light physical exercise. Anything to break them out of the thinking layer and into the doing layer.
You can also shift up from reacting to thinking. Maybe someone points out that you react in a certain way to stimulus; a word, a situation, an environment. You can get curious and ask why you react that way, which engages your thinking layer.
The more you practice sliding up and down the layers, the more easy it becomes. You can engage the right layer for the task at hand.
Gleefully skipping though the layers.
How do I get better at metacognition?
The metacognitive layer is the hardest one to engage, so it takes intentionality and practice to be able to invoke it and leverage it.
I’ll share just a few example techniques below. The underlying theme is creating distance from thoughts, or recognizing thoughts as thoughts and being able to interact with them.
Meditation - Sitting with nothing but your thoughts helps you see them better. Some techniques even have you label thoughts as thoughts when your mind wanders. You start to see that they come out of nowhere and disappear just as easily. You’re creating distance between your thoughts and your self.
Journaling - When you write your thoughts out on paper (or a screen), you create a physical distance. What was inside your head is now outside your head. You can move it around. You can label it. You see your thoughts more clearly because you created a momentary detachment from them.
Seek Perspectives - Be interested in what other people are thinking. Don’t assume your way is the right way. Ask other people how they’re thinking about something. Bring your thoughts onto the table and have other people do the same.
Employ Curiosity - You can question everything. Why did you think that? Why did the other person think that? Wherever you are, be interested in going deeper. Get below the surface layer.
Bringing it all together
There’s a four layer model; doing, reacting, thinking, and thinking about thinking. The thinking about thinking layer is metacognition.
These layers influence each other. If you want to improve your thinking, you need to engage in metacognition.
Metacognition provides protection from cognitive biases and improves decision making.
With awareness, you can shift between layers more easily. This helps you bring the right solution to the problem at hand.
Some techniques to improve metacognition are meditation, journaling, seeking perspectives, and generally getting curious.
Call to Action
Think about your thinking this week!
If you’ve never tried meditation or journaling this week, give it a shot. Two minutes of either one is fine. Just create some distance from your thoughts.
If those aren’t interesting to you, try to notice your thinking and start asking why you’re thinking that way. See if you can spot any cognitive biases at play so that you can limit their risk.
No matter what you do, have fun with it!
If you notice something interesting, let me know about it! Write me at heykev@kevinnoble.xyz.
Kevin
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