499: The Way to Make Better Decisions, with Annie Duke - a podcast by Dave Stachowiak

Annie Duke: How to Decide
Annie Duke is an author, corporate speaker, and consultant in the decision-making space. As a former professional poker player, Annie won more than $4 million in tournament poker before retiring from the game in 2012.Prior to becoming a professional player, Annie was awarded a National Science Foundation Fellowship to study Cognitive Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the co-founder of The Alliance for Decision Education, a non-profit whose mission to improve lives by empowering students through decision skills education.

Annie is the author of Thinking in Bets* and her newest book, How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices*.Key Points

Better decision-making aims to reduce resulting and hindsight bias.Avoid using a pro/cons list in decision-making, as it tends to reinforce biases you already have.
Use a decision tree to document potential decisions, possible outcomes, and the likelihood those outcomes will occur.More people being involved in a decision is helpful, assuming you are actually leveraging each person’s independent thinking.
Negative thinking will help you foresee potential problems along the path of your decision so you can do a better job of mitigating issues before they occur.Resources Mentioned

How to Decide: Simple Tools for Making Better Choices* by Annie DukeThinking, Fast and Slow* by Daniel Kahneman
The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right* by Atul GawandeThe Alliance for Decision Education

Book NotesDownload my highlights from How to Decide in PDF format (free membership required).
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