The Art of Thinking Clearly: Better Thinking, Better Decisions

homines sapientes
who tend

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to scarper when the crowd does. But in the modern world, this intuitive behaviour
is disadvantageous. Today’s world rewards single-minded contemplation and
independent action. Anyone who has fallen victim to stock market hype has
witnessed that.
Evolutionary psychology is still mostly a theory, but a very convincing one. It
explains the majority of flaws, though not all of them. Consider the following
statement: ‘Every Hershey bar comes in a brown wrapper. Thus, every candy bar
in a brown wrapper must be a Hershey bar.’ Even intelligent people are
susceptible to this flawed conclusion – so are native tribes that, for the most part,
remain untouched by civilisation. Our hunter-gatherer ancestors were certainly
not impervious to faulty logic. Some bugs in our thinking are hard-wired and have
nothing to do with the ‘mutation’ of our environment.
Why is that? Evolution does not ‘optimise’ us completely. As long as we
advance beyond our competitors (i.e., beat the Neanderthals), we can get away
with error-laced behaviour. Consider the cuckoo. For hundreds of thousands of
years, they have laid their eggs in the nests of songbirds, which then incubate
and even feed the cuckoo chicks. This represents a behavioural error that
evolution has not erased from the smaller birds; it is not deemed to be serious
enough.
A second, parallel explanation of why our mistakes are so persistent took
shape in the late 1990s. Our brains are designed to reproduce rather than search
for the truth. In other words, we use our thoughts primarily to persuade. Whoever
convinces others secures power and thus access to resources. Such assets
represent a major advantage for mating and for rearing offspring. That truth is, at
best, a secondary focus is reflected in the book market: novels sell much better
than non-fiction titles, in spite of the latter’s superior candour.
Finally, a third explanation exists. Intuitive decisions, even if they lack logic, are
better under certain circumstances. So-called heuristic research deals with this
topic. For many decisions, we lack the necessary information, so we are forced to
use mental shortcuts and rules of thumb (heuristics). If you are drawn to different
potential romantic partners, you must evaluate whom to marry. This is not a
rational decision; if you rely solely on logic, you will remain single forever. In
short, we often decide intuitively and justify our choices later. Many decisions

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(career, life partner, investments) take place subconsciously. A fraction of a
second later, we construct a reason so that we feel we made a conscious choice.
Alas, we do not behave like scientists, who are purely interested in objective
facts. Instead, we think like lawyers, crafting the best possible justification for a
predetermined conclusion.
So, forget about the ‘left and right brain’ that semi-intelligent self-help books
describe. Much more important is the difference between intuitive and rational
thinking. Both have legitimate applications. The intuitive mind is swift,
spontaneous, and energy-saving. Rational thinking is slow, demanding, and
energy-guzzling (in the form of blood sugar). Nobody has described this better
than the great Daniel Kahneman in 
Thinking, Fast and Slow
.
Since I started to collect cognitive errors, people often ask me how I manage to
live an error-free life. The answer is: I don’t. In fact, I don’t even try. Just like
everybody else I make snap decisions by consulting not my thoughts, but my
feelings. For the most part I substitute the question, ‘What do I think about this?’
with ‘How do I feel about this?’ Quite frankly, anticipating and avoiding fallacies is
a costly undertaking.
To make things simple, I have set myself the following rules: in situations
where the possible consequences are large (i.e. important personal or business
decisions), I try to be as reasonable and rational as possible when choosing. I
take out my list of errors, and check them off one by one, just like a pilot does. I’ve
created a handy checklist decision tree, and I use it to examine important
decisions with a fine-tooth comb. In situations where the consequences are small
(i.e. regular or diet Pepsi, sparkling or flat water?) I forget about rational
optimisation and let my intuition take over. Thinking is tiring. Therefore, if the
potential harm is small, don’t rack your brains; such errors won’t do lasting
damage. You’ll live better like this. Nature doesn’t seem to mind if our decisions
are perfect or not, as long as we can manoeuvre ourselves through life – and as
long as we are ready to be rational when it comes to the crunch. And there’s one
other area where I let my intuition take the lead: when I am in my 
circle of
competence
. If you practise an instrument, you learn the notes and tell your
fingers how to play them. Over time, you know the keys or the strings inside out.
You see a musical score and your hands play the notes almost automatically.
Warren Buffett reads balance sheets like professional musicians read scores.

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This is his 
circle of competence
, the field he intuitively understands and masters.
So, find out where your circle of competence is. Get a clear grasp of it. Hint: it’s
smaller than you think. If you face a consequential decision outside that circle,
apply the hard, slow, rational thinking. For everything else, give your intuition free
rein.

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A CK NOWLE DGME NTS
Thanks to my friend Nassim Nicholas Taleb for inspiring me to write this book,
even if his advice was not to publish it under any circumstances. Alas, he
encouraged me to write novels, arguing that non-fiction isn’t ‘sexy’. The hours we
have passed together discussing how to live in a world we don’t understand have
been my favourite hours of the week. Thanks to Koni Gebistorf, who masterfully
edited the original German texts, and to Nicky Griffin who translated the book to
English (when she was away from her office at Google). I couldn’t have picked
better publishers and editors than Hollis Heimbouch from HarperCollins and
Drummond Moir from Sceptre who has given these chapters their final finesse.
Thanks to the scientists of the ZURICH.MINDS community for the countless
debates about the state of research. Special thanks go to Gerd Gigerenzer, Roy
Baumeister, Leda Cosmides, John Tooby, Robert Cialdini, Jonathan Haidt, Ernst
Fehr, Bruno Frey, Iris Bohnet, Dan Golstein, Tomáš Sedlá c¡ek and the
philosopher John Gray for the enlightening conversations. I also thank my literary
agent, John Brockman and his superb crew, for helping me with both the
American and British editions of this book. Thanks to Frank Schirrmacher for
finding space for my columns in the 
Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
, to Giovanni
di Lorenzo and Moritz Mueller-Wirth for their publication in 
Die Zeit
(Germany),
and to Martin Spieler who gave them a good home in Switzerland’s
Sonntagszeitung
. Without the weekly pressure to forge one’s thoughts into a
readable format, my notes would never have been published in book form.
For everything that appears here after the countless stages of editing, I alone
bear the responsibility. My greatest thanks go to my wife, Sabine Ried, who
proves to me every day that the ‘good life’ – as defined by Aristotle – consists of
far more than clear thoughts and clever actions.

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A UTHOR B I OGRA P HY
Rolf Dobelli, born 1966, is a Swiss writer, novelist and entrepreneur. He has an
MBA and a PhD in economic philosophy from the University of St. Gallen,
Switzerland. Dobelli is co-founder of getAbstract, the world`s leading provider of
book summaries. Most famously, he is author of THE ART OF THINKING
CLEARLY, which became an instant success and landed on the number 1 spot
on Germany`s official bestseller list and has been translated into many
languages. Dobelli is also founder and curator of ZURICH.MINDS, an invitation-
only community of the most distinguished thinkers, scientists and artists.
www.rolfdobelli.com
www.facebook.com/dobelli

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A NOTE ON S OURCE S
Hundreds of studies have been conducted on the vast majority of cognitive and
behavioural errors. The knowledge encompassed in this book is based on the
research carried out in the fields of cognitive and social psychology over the past
three decades. For full references, as well as recommendations for further
reading and comments, visit www.sceptrebooks.co.uk/AOTC.

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