Think about the times you spent hovering over a single decision.

The times you made a decision and looked back in doubt shortly after.

The times you wished you had an expert to nudge you in the right direction.

Though you can’t always have someone to tell you what to do, you can create a framework to improve the quality of your decisions and increase the likelihood of making optimal ones.

Today, I’ll show you how.

When they say “We should do option A because of X and Y etc”, it seems straightforward and makes perfect sense.

Yet, when you try to make a similar decision, you find yourself clouded by emotions and end up making one in haste. That often leaves you uncertain of whether you made the right judgement at that point of time.

What’s more – if results turn out negative, it can be especially frustrating and discouraging. When this happens, you tend to downplay all of these to your incompetency or dismiss it as that “I’m just not as good as them”.

The truth is, you’re more than capable of making optimal decisions.

All of us want to be able to make decisions that we ultimately do not end up regretting. In order to improve the quality of your decisions to avoid all unnecessary post-decision trauma, what you need is a proven framework as well as an understanding on how we make decisions.

That’s exactly what I have for you in this free guide: a proven system to eradicate poor decisions and make optimal ones that has helped me to get to the top of the professional poker food chain, build a multimillion-dollar e-commerce business and live a rich life. Even more essentially, it has helped me work through the millions of possibilities out there to work on the biggest goals in life.

Are you ready to compound the best decisions and achieve your goals with certainty?

Let’s get started.

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Just 5 years ago, I completed my mandatory conscription in the Singapore Armed Forces and was playing poker recreationally. While I was making decent money for an undergrad, I was not fully convinced that it could be a possible career choice. Let me explain why.

In Singapore, it is a social norm for young adults of my generation to obtain a Bachelor’s degree before moving on to a 9-to-5 job. Naturally, I enrolled in University to pursue Economics. However, I felt the classes were a waste of time. Moreover, my short gambling stints in Macau (Chinese Sin City) were making me more money than I could possibly ever make at a 9-to-5 job with the degree I can get.

Shortly after, one of my trusted buddies persuaded me to quit school and pursue poker full-time. Perhaps it was due to societal norms or inertia on my part, but dropping out of school had never occurred to me before then.

Nonetheless, I’m glad I made that decision – it eventually led me to playing the highest regularly played stakes poker in Macau, making over 7 figures in winnings.

That got me thinking – what if nobody had pushed me to quit school & pursue poker?

My life would be radically different now!

I might be slogging away doing desk work at a bank, for a boss that I hate, for the life that could be better.

I then realized that I left a lot of my other decisions to chance and blaming it on ‘lack of expertise or experience’

What if I told you – even the smallest and seemingly insignificant decisions can slowly affect how our lives pan out?

As illustrated in the graph below, making a small error or two may cause a minuscule effect on our lives in the short term. However, the power of compounding tells us that anything repeated over time ultimately creates a compounded result. This means that as time goes by, even the simplest error would compound to greatly affect where we stand in life. This is especially the case when we extrapolate to a longer period of time!

Let’s say that you’ve chosen to eat at McDonald’s over a clean and healthy meal. It may not affect you if you do that today. However, if you continue doing that consistently, it’s going to reflect on your health (and waistline).

With this newfound revelation, I starting building a framework for making better decisions. I use the exact same framework to make key decisions in my businesses, ad hoc travel plans and virtually everything that requires decision making – and that has allowed me to sleep soundly knowing I have done what I could to the best of my abilities.

If you feel that you still make poor decisions once in a while or are still puzzled at how certain people consistently make good decisions with ease, don’t worry.

I felt exactly the same years ago.

With the systems, frameworks and strategies laid out in this free guide, you can easily change that.

You can learn how to master the tools and framework to making better decisions, for life.

Once you get a hang of making better decisions, you virtually guarantee a better future for yourself – stacking great decisions from this moment forward.

I used to have huge doubts in the education system as to why we spend so many years learning elementary math, science and so forth. They don’t seem to be relevant in our current work… or are they?

As it turns out, mental models help us understand life. They explain how things work and can be applied to any concept, simplified complexity or worldview.

Simply put, mental models help us think better. Treat them like tools. The more tools you collect in your toolbox, the likelier it is for you to make better decisions. Some of them we learnt during our formal education and some of them we learnt along the way through books and such.

The world is too complicated for us to process. We deal with millions of micro information through our senses every moment.

What happens when we can’t process them all? We end up taking shortcuts to simplify them which lead to mistakes.

It’s easy to make wrong decisions and mistakes when it comes to things we don’t understand.

You might bust your life savings co-investing in a bar on Brooklyn Street off Uncle Tony’s recommendation. You might say something you don’t mean and ruin your relationship with your potential spouse.

Keeping these mental models at our fingertips allows us to view the world more rationally by guiding our perception and behavior. This will in turn help us to avoid making unnecessary mistakes and rash decisions.

It’s no wonder billionaire investor Charlie Munger refers to mental models as the key to “elementary, worldly wisdom”.

There are thousands of mental models, but the most important ones we should tackle are the ones that apply broadly across multiple disciplines and are applicable to a wide spectrum of situations.

Concepts that we learn in school, for instance Bell Curve / Normal Distribution / Velocity – they’re all mental models. In fact, we have been picking up mental models and internalizing them throughout the years. Our days spent in the classroom are not for nothing!

However, most of us limit our perceptions to our specialization in our work. Instead of employing a latticework of mental models to make decisions, most of us may only make use of the few from our disciplines. Take a look at this illustration below.

If we look at things only in a certain perspective, we’ve got a blind spot. And blind spots can kill you. It’s like the old saying, “To the man with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” Our goal is to put these thinking disciplines together and look at problems in a three-dimensional way. This will then allow us to make better decisions on a regular basis.

I’m going to make it easy and actionable for you guys here. I’ve narrowed down the never-ending list of mental models down to those that carry the heavier freight in our decision making and are applicable across multiple disciplines.

Now you probably would have seen a lot of these mental models throughout your life. I won’t be explaining their meaning to you but instead I’ll be giving examples off a fictitious character called Annie. For those mental models that are foreign to you please look them up online.

Let’s get on to it.

List of Mental Models

It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of mental models out there. It’s just as tempting to just skimp through and read the ones that interest you or give up entirely.

This is why I’ve come up with a comprehensive 5-step plan to help internalize these mental models ASAP.

I’m employing three key strategies for you to  internalize these mental models – Spaced repetition learning for memory, ELI5 for understanding and conscious application for internalizing.

Timeline : 3 weeks / 40 hours

1. Read through the entire list and give an example to explain each mental model such that a five-year-old would understand it.

1. 1. You might not be able to do it at the first go but just try your best

1. 2. This could take easily 20 hours so be prepared for this

1. 3. Compile your list & explanations in a document

2. Come back to it a week later and redo the entire exercise

1. 1. This time round, draw an example without referring to the explanation of the mental model

1. 2. Again, aim to have it as simple as possible so that a five year-old would understand

3. Come back to it 2 weeks later and redo the entire exercise

4. Finally, pick out 10 application of mental models in your daily life per day until the end of 3 weeks.

Decision Making : The Ultimate Guide Part 4  

The 2 Step Decision Making Process

Now that we’ve internalized the latticework of mental models – what’s next?

When it comes to trickier decisions that require more thought, Charlie Munger uses a 2-step decision making process. By using this 2-step filter to make decisions, you can prevent yourself from being manipulated by malicious people or even ignorant well-wishers.

This simple and lightweight approach will help us reduce human misjudgment and make optimal decisions.

Let’s get to it.

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1) Understand your circle of competence

The first step of the approach is to know what you know and know what you don’t know. Are you considered an expert in that field? Which level are you actually at?

Being brutally honest with yourself will allow you to take the extra step to consult people who might give a better insight regarding the issue. If the issue is within your circle of competence, it should not be difficult to work out the relevant variables and forces at play.

However, if the issue is not within your circle of competence and you are forced to make an immediate decision, using inversion as a tool to tackle it could be the way to go.

For instance:

Annie has an important assignment due and she needs to get it done as soon as possible. Instead of trying to apply deep work techniques that she is not familiar in an attempt to increase productivity, it is more plausible for her to avoid doing things that will result in her not getting work done (i.e. getting distracted by social media, going out with friends and so on).

Avoiding stupidity is easier than seeking brilliance. Inverting the issue won’t always solve the problem but it will help to avoid trouble.

2) Understand the Psychological Factors

The second step of the approach is to avoid subconscious conclusions that can be devastatingly wrong. Many of us greatly underestimate the power of the unconscious mind. This causes a lot of bias judgement and human tendencies.

Apart from internalizing the Human Nature & Judgement section in the List of Mental Models, it’s utterly essential to not be hasty with the important decisions and take the first conclusion as it is.

One exercise is to take a step back and hear different perspectives about it. When you spot biases in other people’s perspectives, you get a better idea if you are having biases yourself.

For instance :

When my rental lease was ending, I was deciding between extending it or finding another location to stay at. My initial thoughts were to weigh the pros and cons of each possible location, in terms of convenience, value for money, potential for growth and so on. However, I still had doubts about my decision despite the in-depth analysis.

Subsequently, I consulted a few friends. One of them mentioned that where I move to next should be a place that is advantageous to achieving my goals. That definitely changed how I think about choosing which place to stay at!

If you watch how people make their decisions closely, you will realize a lot of them are subjected to psychological factors which make their decision making much poorer.

Our goal is be extremely rational and not let our subconscious make decisions for us; or risk being susceptible to the different biases of human nature.

Decision Making : The Ultimate Guide Part 5

Automating the Easy Decisions

While our dear Mark’s wardrobe can be exceptionally boring, he is right in every other sense. No matter how good you are at decision making, we only have finite willpower that depletes as we use it throughout the day. Automating small day-to-day decisions will free up bandwidth for more important decisions later in the day.

I will first show you how to clear the easy day-to-day decisions that apply to 95% of the population. Next, I will demonstrate how these simple automations may look like in everyday life

Don’t have time to read the whole habits guide right now?

No worries. Let me send you the full 35-page guide as a PDF so you can read it when it’s convenient for you. Just let me know where to send it (takes 5 seconds):

4 Decision Areas for Immediate Automation

1. Organize Your Possessions

Have a clear idea of where each item goes in your house so you don’t have to decide where to put them and  waste your willpower figuring out where they are when you need them.

Take it a step further Marie Kondo style by purging possessions that no longer give you joy. You’ll be surprised by the amount of items that you actually never need to use even in the next 6 months.

This will offload decisions regarding where to put things.

2. Standardize Your Outfits

With the number of fashion styles out there, you can never truly keep up with the different and latest fashion trends all the time. Style does not mean a massive walk-in wardrobe; it can mean a one that is clean and versatile too.

If you already have a set uniform to wear to work everyday, that’s awesome because you don’t really have to worry about this section. If not, a great idea would be to engage a personal fashion advisor to simplify your clothing choices.

1. 1. Get a wardrobe consultant from Thumbtack to remake your personal style (Cost $25-$120/hour)

1. 2. Google and find your personal fashion adviser ($80 upwards/hour)

The idea is to talk to someone who can figure out the 1-2 styles that suit you best and remake your wardrobe accordingly. That somebody CAN shop for you but you can probably do that yourself as well.

This will offload your decision making when it comes to choosing your outfit for the day.

3. Simplify Your Meals

I can’t count the number of times I’ve stared blankly at food delivery websites, undecided on what to get for lunch/dinner. Similarly, when I’m out to grab a quick bite, I end up engaging in intense mental debate on what to eat (healthy/delicious/refreshing).

1. 1. Do meal preparation weekly (Cheapest alternative but will take up a few hours a week)

1. 2. Hire a personal chef (roughly over $20,000 / annum)

1. 3. Have pre-made, chef-cooked, healthy meals delivered weekly to your place ($100< / week)

Don’t be like me in the past – offload your decision making when it comes to choosing what to eat

4. Declutter The Workspace

Your brain works in such a way that once it registers a certain object, it will trigger a thought about it. If you have 101 items laid out across your workspace/desk you will find yourself constantly engaging in decisions.

“Do I need this pen?”

“Should I throw this wrapper out now or later?”

“When is this credit card bill due?”

1. 1. Spend an hour decluttering your workspace.

1. 2. Think about the things you often have on your workspace. Weigh the trade off between the convenience of reaching out to it quickly vs taking up mental space.)

1. 3. Remove the things that you use less than once a week.

1. 4. Next, remove the things that you use less than once daily.

1. 5. Once you realize it does not even affect you, remove objects that you don’t use hourly.

Doing this will offload random decisions that take up mental space so you can focus on your actual work and achieve deep work in the process.

Pro Tip: Don’t forget to declutter your web browser tabs. Having multiple tabs with what seems to be important will leave you with decision fatigue when it comes to finding the right tab for work. This applies to even desktop home screen / phone home screen and more!

Once you have these 4 areas cleared up, congratulations – you are more than halfway through automating the easy decisions in your daily life.

Next, we have to figure out what other specialized areas are causing decision fatigue in our day-to-day lives. This differs for each individual so we need to observe our own habits.

1. 1. Start your day as per usual and note down the decisions that take more than 10 seconds to make

1. 2. Note that you have to be extremely conscious about this in order to identify these decision traps.

1. 3. Rinse and repeat for the entire week until you have cleared out most of these traps

What this might look like in your life:

Example 1:

Back when I was playing live poker in Macau, I traveled to the casino daily. Right before I leave the house, I found myself spending up to a few minutes deciding on a transport option to take. I had three choices – bus, taxi and foot.

Taking the taxi might have seemed like the fastest option. However, it was also erratic and it could be difficult to flag one down at certain times. The buses had a regular schedule, but missing one and having to wait for the next was a big pain in the ass. That left me with going by foot. Although that seemed like the slowest option of the three, it was, however, the most consistent one. There were neither peak hour woes nor the stress of chasing after a bus. As soon as I left the house, I would put on a podcast and walk to the casino in the expected duration.

Example 2:

When I first moved out to live on my own, I found myself catapulted into adulthood and having to deal with bills, bills and more bills. For the first few months, I would freeze up whenever I see a bill slip lying on the table. What is this bill for? When is it due? Have I paid for it already?

One day, while I was on a flight to Bangkok for an e-commerce convention, it struck me that I had forgotten to pay one of my bills. It was then that I realized the sheer amount of unnecessary stress that these payments were causing me.

Upon my return home, I sat down in front of a table and gathered all the bills that I have to pay on a monthly basis. One after another, I applied for them to be paid automatically. This tedious process took a few hours, but boy, was it worth it. How I wish I had done this earlier! I no longer have to worry about managing my bills when I’m out of the country (and skiing down a mountain in Niseko).  

As these tiny automations add up each day, it won’t be long before you’ve extended your willpower to make better decisions throughout your day.

Automating your easy decisions will free up mental bandwidth for the more important decisions during the day.

Don’t expect instant change. The above action steps I’ve listed out will take about a month to execute, or a week if you’re fast enough. Execution is key here so do not hesitate and stay accountable for them!

Decision Making : The Ultimate Guide Part 6

Using Decision Making to Live a Rich Life

By now, you’d have learnt some of the key systems and strategies to optimal decision making.

Now, it’s time to apply what you’ve learnt to living a Richer Life.

These skills that you’ve acquired will point you in the direction that you choose your life to be – rich, fulfilling, filled with joy & so on.

You can work extremely hard, but if you’re pointed at the wrong direction, you won’t get far. On the other hand, if you’re locked on your desired destination, no matter how slow you go, you will reach your goal eventually.

Take a little time to think about where you want to be. Once you’ve determined the route to take, stay on course. You may not move forward all the time but if you trust the process, you’ll find yourself getting closer to your goal.

Throughout the years, I’ve shared these systems and strategies of decision making with many of my close friends and loved ones. I’ve seen firsthand how they have benefited from it and are now flourishing in their respective fields – this just goes to show how anyone, no matter how old you are or which industry you’re in, can benefit from learning how to make better decisions.

I encourage you to share this guide with your friends and family and reap the rewards of intelligent decision making together!

References :

Farnam Street. (2019). Mental Models: The Best Way to Make Intelligent Decisions (109 Models Explained). [online] Available at: https://fs.blog/mental-models/ [Accessed 16 Feb. 2019].

James Clear. (2019). Mental Models: Learn How to Think Better and Gain a Mental Edge. [online] Available at: https://jamesclear.com/mental-models [Accessed 16 Feb. 2019].

Mark Zuckerberg icon adapted from: https://jacobgreif.com/funny-or-dies-the-occasional