A List of Proven Mental Models

This year, I’ve learned a lot about mental models and systems. Using these tools can really boost your productivity.

Photo by Nick Bolton on Unsplash

In this short post, I want to summarize a few key mental models:

• The principal-agent problem: A model about conflicting interests between different parties in decision-making processes.
• Compound interest: Exponentially growing interest.
• Pareto principle (80/20 Rule): Most effects come from a minority of causes.
• Mathematics: number lines, algebraic equations, geometric shapes, probability trees, graphs, and charts, …
• Black swans: Unpredictable events with significant impact.
• Dunning-Kruger effect: Overestimating one’s abilities due to lack of expertise.
• Network effect: The value of a product increases as more people use it.
• Falsifiability: Testability of hypotheses through potential contradiction or disproof.
• Confirmation bias: Tendency to favor information that confirms existing beliefs.
• Running uphill: Focusing on being positive, calm, and purposeful.
• Regression to the mean: High or low performance tends to move towards the average over time.

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This list could be continued much more, but my goal with this post was to keep the main part below 150 words for a specific Medium publication. However, I might continue the list in a future post.