Think Better

The books, in order

1. 1

   Psychology · 14 min

   The Invisible Gorilla

   Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons

   The feeling of remembering something sharply measures emotion, not accuracy: a vivid memory can be wrong.

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2. 2

   Psychology · 17 min

   Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking

   Malcolm Gladwell

   A trained expert's intuition is pattern recognition at high speed, not magic or luck.

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3. 3

   Psychology · 15 min

   The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less

   Barry Schwartz

   Having more options feels like freedom, but past a certain point it just becomes more work for your brain to decide.

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4. 4

   Personal Finance · 16 min

   Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness

   Richard H. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein

   According to the book, being asked to save more out of a raise that hasn't arrived yet hurts less than being asked to save more out of the paycheck that's already in your pocket.

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5. 5

   Economy and Society · 17 min

   Noise

   Daniel Kahneman, Olivier Sibony and Cass R. Sunstein

   In a company that never compares decisions, the gap between professionals can be far bigger than anyone imagines: at the insurance company in the book, it was more than five times what was expected.

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6. 6

   Science · 16 min

   The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

   Leonard Mlodinow

   Two or three times in a row do not make a reliable pattern; they make a sample too small to prove anything on its own.

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7. 7

   Personal Finance · 15 min

   Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

   Nassim Nicholas Taleb

   Taking the hit and going back to how you were before is a tie; what makes a difference in the long run is coming out of the hit a little better.

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8. 8

   Technology and the Future · 18 min

   The Signal and the Noise

   Nate Silver

   Amassing an enormous volume of information does not guarantee better decisions if you cannot filter out what actually has practical relevance.

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9. 9

   Psychology · 15 min

   Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction

   Philip E. Tetlock and Dan Gardner

   In the book, people with one big theory showed up more on TV, but people who mixed several perspectives were right more often.

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10. 10

    Economy and Society · 16 min

    Enlightenment Now

    Steven Pinker

    Extreme poverty falling worldwide doesn't erase inequality inside each country. They are two different problems, measured with different yardsticks.

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