Tools for Better Thinking(untools.co)

855 pointsby andsoitis4 tahun yang lalu72 comments

https://untools.co

75 comments

krick4 tahun yang lalu

Does anybody know of something similar, but written in a more elaborate book-like fashion?

It's not about format, of course, it's just that all these model-zoo's are only half of the story — not useless, but rather incomplete. That is, if you learn a lot of them, one day you might remember something and find it useful — or you might not. This is a bit abstract, but I want to say you rarely ever need any special tools of thinking (or maybe even tools in general) — you want a technology. That is, a relatively broad (but precisely defined) instruction of how to identify and approach a set of problems in some domain. I.e., it is more about when to use a tool or technique, rather than being a exhibition of such tools. I mean, there is important difference — that's kinda the difference between going to college and going to a museum.

For example, GTD is a technology (doesn't matter good or bad). It tells you when to use tools/techniques suggested (and a better book would have more showcases and exercises to internalize the idea, IMO). This site or coursera's famous "Models Thinking" course — aren't.

caffeine4 tahun yang lalu

I found the book “Good Strategy, Bad Strategy” was pretty close to what you are talking about.

* Good definitions of what is or is not a strategy

* How to identify whether you have an actual strategy or just some empty words or a repetition of the objective

* A lot of examples of different strategies, bad strategies, and non-strategies

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11721966-good-strategy-b...

ryloric4 tahun yang lalu

Third time I came across this book in less than 10 days. I swear there's a name for this phenomenon..

louky4 tahun yang lalu

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frequency_illusion

I've seen references to this terrorist group multiple times this week!

kqr4 tahun yang lalu

I like your question. I don't have much of a concrete answer, but systems theory paired with queuing theory has been broadly useful for me in assessing situations and making back-of-the-napkin consequence estimations of various decisions.

Of course, I don't know of any book that teaches systems theory "as a technology" -- it's something I've learned by reading a lot of books on different things and picking up the threads they have in common.

Systems theory relies, really, on a complete map of the causal network of a situation. We're not at a point where we can give a step-by-step instruction for inferring the causal network behind situations. We have some ideas on how to statistically do this in a limited fashion (see Judea Perl) but the general problem is still one of creativity, intuition, fact-checking, Bayesian probability, and so on. You get good at it by doing it a lot in various situations and reflecting on your performance -- the way you get good at most mental skills.

I may have ended up answering a different question to the one you asked, but these were my thoughts.

----

I guess with all my rambling I'm trying to say that ultimately, "better thinking" boils down to "a more complete understanding of situations" and the best way to get there in my experience has been the scientific method, democracy (in the true sense of the word), and curiosity. These are very complex technologies that are not easy to teach.

lobocinza4 tahun yang lalu

It's not what he asked me but what you said reminded of this blog:

https://harishsnotebook.wordpress.com/

rramadass4 tahun yang lalu

You may find the following useful;

* The Thinker's Toolkit: 14 Powerful Techniques for Problem Solving by Morgan Jones.

* Mindware: Tools for Smart Thinking by Richard Nisbett.

dotancohen4 tahun yang lalu

  > Does anybody know of something similar, but written in a more elaborate book-like fashion?

Not book-like, but I put many things that I learn into Anki: https://apps.ankiweb.net/

I sync it to my phone with AnkiDroid: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.ichi2.anki

I occasionally review the actual facts as flashcards. But having the notes already in flashcard format has been my secret weapon for seeming intelligent for years.

DecayingOrganic4 tahun yang lalu

This is something I also did in the past. I would “ankify” the books I read, hoping to maximize my retention of the material.

However soon I ran into some problems, turns out I couldn’t remember the cues. The same way you can’t remember the capital of a country if you don’t remember the country itself first!

This led me to question the actual value I was getting from this whole ordeal.

rsanek4 tahun yang lalu

I find this happening over the long term (3-5 years after adding) too, but I think of it as more of a feature than a bug. Anki significantly extends the amount of time concepts stay in my brain, but it's unrealisting for me to expect it to do so over a decade or more without my interacting with the source material outside of simply flashcard review.

michaelcampbell4 tahun yang lalu

If you're not getting value from remembering a thing, it's more about the choice to memorize the thing than how you remember it, seems to me.

dotancohen4 tahun yang lalu

Thank you for the perspective. Perhaps because I occasionally, but not obsessively, review the material it stick better for me.

antman4 tahun yang lalu

Did you also create reverse cards? Like: Whose contry's capital is Uagadugu?

dotancohen4 tahun yang lalu

Anki supports Cloze Deletions, so you could have a card e.g. The capital of {{Burkina Paso}} is {{Uagadugu}}. Anki would then automatically present you with two questions:

  The capital of Burkina Paso is ____.
  The capital of ____ is Uagadugu.

donjoe4 tahun yang lalu

I recommend Haberfellner - Systems Engineering (ISBN 303013430X).

The Incose handbook for systems engineering: https://www.incose.org/products-and-publications/se-handbook

(You might be able to find an older version for free)

Disclaimer: I've been participating in a Systems Engineering master program @ university a while back which was based on both Haberfellner (and is finally available in English also) and Incose.

lstamour4 tahun yang lalu

Has it been so long that folks have forgotten https://gamestorming.com/ ? It used to be a classic. https://learning.oreilly.com/library/view/gamestorming/97814...

Here’s an updated version, maybe? https://coda.io/@dave-mastronardi/gamestorming-a-toolkit-for...

wodenokoto4 tahun yang lalu

> Has it been so long that folks have forgotten https://gamestorming.com/ ?

Forgotten? I've never even heard of it.

lstamour4 tahun yang lalu

Interesting. Just searched HN and it seems you’re right, it didn’t get much traction with developers, perhaps because it was billed as a facilitation toolkit and not about how to generate or validate better startup ideas, like Design Sprints.

http://eurydice13.com/2019/01/how-to-prepare-for-and-run-a-d... shows something of an example of how it used to work. It made more of a splash in UX and Design circles. For example: https://talks.ui-patterns.com/videos/design-practices-for-co...

There was a point in time where it seemed like I was seeing it everywhere. At conferences, meetings, university classes, hackathons and any number of presentations, etc.

Here it was at SXSWi in 2011: https://www.imagethink.net/game-storming-sxswi/

Also: https://co-learning.eu/tags/gamestorming/

It’s true that once Google Venture’s Design Sprints book took off, it became a bit of a benchmark in the space of collaborative idea workshops etc.

But before Design Sprints, there was Gamestorming. https://vimeo.com/18880751 It might seem a bit overblown. I’d call it a brand name that happens to reflect a style of work popular before Agile and Scrum made everything cookie-cutter from a backlog.

atakrista4 tahun yang lalu

Well, the true power of a tool comes from the ability of its user, not from the tool itself

Even though someone explains you where you can you a tool, they just share some instences of the endless possibilities

For example, a stick can be used to make a fire, to support a structure, to throw and hunt, to have hun with your dog, and for many other things

It is all about understanding what the tool is, what its fundamentals are

Once you know the basics, you can see the situations where the tools can be used that no one has ever imagined to used them in that way

nrjames4 tahun yang lalu

You might want to check out The Thinker's Toolkit: https://www.amazon.com/Thinkers-Toolkit-Powerful-Techniques-...

stevenjgarner4 tahun yang lalu

"De Bono's thinking course" by Edward de Bono influenced me greatly

antigremlin4 tahun yang lalu

Many people mentioned the Farnam Street newsletter, but Shane Parrish has also published a book in 3 volumes: The Great Mental Models, see https://fs.blog/books/

Abishek_Muthian4 tahun yang lalu

Not a book, But if you'd like an occasional(non-regular) but high quality newsletter serving the same purpose then checkout - https://www.clearerthinking.org/blog .

P.S. Not affiliated to them in any way, Just a subscriber.

thomaspaillot4 tahun yang lalu

You might be interested in reading « The Macroscope » from Joel de Rosnay. A good read if you’re interested in the theory behind systems thinking.

lumenwrites4 tahun yang lalu

"Rationality: From AI to Zombies" by Eliezer Yudkowsky.

iNic4 tahun yang lalu

The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef

phforms4 tahun yang lalu

I think it is telling that most of the tools on this website (and in similar collections I have seen) are diagrammatic in nature. Diagrams might have been the most important “tools for thought” since our ancestors invented lists, tables, calendars and maps, long before recent note-taking app startups used this expression for their marketing purposes (which is absolutely fair and I am always happy to see when thinking tools become more popular outside of business/science contexts).

I think it has something to do with how intertwined structure is with diagrammatic representation. Models as well as systems are all about structure, which is why you often see them represented in diagrams (and if you don’t, you may still think about them in diagrammatic terms). And yet, historically diagrams have often been neglected in science until very recently.

I believe digital tools are still missing a lot of their potential as thinking tools because of how text-centric they are. I don’t suggest that it could have been different, given technical constraints and demands, but maybe computers would aid our thinking much more if they would actually allow us to more freely and intelligently draw diagrams. Ivan Sutherlands Sketchpad was a great step in that direction (I am sure most of you have seen it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sketchpad) and more recently the work of Bret Victor (http://worrydream.com/MediaForThinkingTheUnthinkable/). But in many regards I believe that paper is still superior to what we have done so far.

chrisweekly4 tahun yang lalu

Obsidian.md is a pillar in the modern "Tools for Thought" space (along with logseq and Roam Research). Obsidian's plugin ecosystem is enormous, and features robust, bidirectional integration with Excalidraw. Notes in your diagrams, diagrams in your notes... combining text and visual/spatial sketch and whiteboard tools is profoundly powerful.

https://github.com/zsviczian/obsidian-excalidraw-plugin

Now there's also ExcaliBrain which builds on Obsidian's graph view:

https://github.com/zsviczian/excalibrain

movedx4 tahun yang lalu

I use miro.com because it lets me thinking visually. I can represent ideas and thoughts with sticky notes, images, tables, embedded videos, etc., and then draw conclusions or find problems, allowing me to go on to make better decisions.

I think making "cave man drawings" (diagrams, lists, etc.), as I call them, when trying to think through some things is a clever way of starting out.

ramoz4 tahun yang lalu

Similar with excalidraw.com

phforms4 tahun yang lalu

I agree, Excalidraw has been a revelation to me and I use it all the time to sketch out ideas/concepts, models and designs. Most diagram tools never embraced the “thinking in action” aspect of diagramming and rather focus on production of graphical artifacts for presentations. Excalidraw gets out of my way and just lets me focus on the thinking.

Miro also has a very intuitive and well thought-out UI and I like how it is like a big desk where you can work on multiple sheets/frames, move them around, connect them, zoom in/out even in real-time collaboration. But it also (like most of these apps) seems to me very business-focussed, which is fine but I think everyone should have something like this (or like Excalidraw) as a standard app on their computer, just like every OS has some sort of Notepad.

movedx4 tahun yang lalu

Miro is deffo aimed at business, for sure. It's far more advanced than Excalidraw, by a long shot, only multiple levels.

craigkerstiens4 tahun yang lalu

Big fan of some of Barbara Minto's stuff. There is a great talk on executive communication and applying the Minto method from Michael Dearing in the Heavybit library - https://www.heavybit.com/library/video/executive-communicati...

personjerry4 tahun yang lalu

Isn't the "Minto Pyramid" just this? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism...

agumonkey4 tahun yang lalu

"hedge against unreliability"

funny how this is often the source of inventions

- separation of concerns in document/web creation

- layers/composable/virtual concepts in programming

nine_k4 tahun yang lalu

Also, layered security.

tmaly4 tahun yang lalu

her book is great, I have the 97 version.

itsmemattchung4 tahun yang lalu

Agreed. Amazon is notorious for their written culture. While working there, this book was listed as a recommended read for anyone interested writing clear, concise prose and I'm so glad to have picked up the (97) version of this book

monroewalker4 tahun yang lalu

motohagiography4 tahun yang lalu

Highly recommend the newsletter as well. What's smart about FS and this Untools site is these models are compact ideas you can iterate the logic of into some really sophisticated views.

Things like the Ishikawa diagram on Untools are really new worldviews. I bought Edward Tufte's data visualization books back at the turn of the century, and his objection to powerpoint reduced to how the form of a visualization conveys an underlying logic of ideas by virtue of the dimensions it displays and the number of them that were strictly meaningful ("ink to data ratio"). Viz that only displayed one data variable but added a bunch of "chartjunk," like effects and weird shapes, was not informative but essentially just bizarre totalitarian propaganda.

Some of these mental models and decision support tools are multi-variate systems for evaluating pretty much anything, which makes them almost the basis for alternate ideologies about how to evaluate a dynamic or criticize an idea. Sometimes I suspect what we think of as genius is really just a privately developed ideology based on a few evaluation principles like the ones linked on this thread.

monroewalker4 tahun yang lalu

Hm, how is the Ishikawa diagram more useful than an outline? They seem to capture and structure information very similarly

kqr4 tahun yang lalu

It implies a different direction, I suppose. One of constructing a whole from parts, rather than decomposing the whole into parts.

This can be meaningful in cases where the whole changes as part of the construction process. If I wanted to deconstruct the things in soap, I would probably not have a branch for "lye", because all lye has (thankfully) reacted away from the end product. But if I constructed a fishbone chart for the same soap, then lye is one of the first ingredients I would list.

Sometimes looking at the same thing from a different angle helps you realise things you otherwise wouldn't. If you find it does not, then an outline is good enough for you!

adamnemecek4 tahun yang lalu

I think that there are like three concepts in math or the world, the concepts being the adjoint, norm and fixed point.

https://github.com/adamnemecek/adjoint

The concept of a fixed point is so ubiquitous.

motohagiography4 tahun yang lalu

Intuitively I knew an idea like this must exist, but had no idea of how it could be formulated. If it is indeed accurate, even just to a point, it's probably one of the most important abstractions/heuristics/ideas I have ever read.

> Adjointness is only a part of the story. One often sees equations of the following form inverse(x) = adjoint(x)/norm(x). Once you have adjoint and norm, you magically get inverse.

That said, I am often spectacularly ignorant and easily seduced by simple views of complex things, but if there were name for this form or axiom, like Nemecek's axiom or something, I hope it sticks.

jackthetab4 tahun yang lalu

ELI5?

I couldn't make heads or tails out of that or the first linked page.

rahimnathwani4 tahun yang lalu

Do you know of a gentler introduction, for someone with less math background? Or does it only make sense after reaching a certain level of mathematical maturity?

derelicto4 tahun yang lalu

This is one of the hacker new posts that makes me open 50 tabs

laybak4 tahun yang lalu

haha same! "# new tabs opened" is a poetic metric

yakshaving_jgt4 tahun yang lalu

https://xkcd.com/214/

yboris4 tahun yang lalu

Daniel Dennett has an excellent book Intuition Pumps And Other Tools for Thinking https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393348784

Here's a short article about it: https://fs.blog/dan-dannetts-thinking-tools/

One lovely idea I liked from the book is a recommendation, whenever in an argument / discussion, is to understand the other person's point of view and articulate it so well, that they say "I couldn't have said it better myself". Because it is starting from that point that can you can know you're not strawmanning or misunderstanding each other.

Pamar4 tahun yang lalu

Has anyone mentioned TRIZ yet?

--- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TRIZ

totetsu4 tahun yang lalu

Reminds me a bit of The Decision Book.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9793361-the-decision-boo...

rpmuller4 tahun yang lalu

Does anyone know of programming tools for better thinking? I used to be a very good programmer, and now I run a large research organization. One would think that there would be ample opportunity to use my programming skills to better manage the organization, but there's little more than exploring business data using Excel. The closest I've come is the Thinking in Systems stuff that Donella Meadows and her colleagues have done.

Are there other Thinking Tools for programmers who want an edge in managing large groups?

dhash4 tahun yang lalu

emacs with org mode helps me run an org

DrJaws4 tahun yang lalu

This reminds me a lot to FS mental models, they even have some books

https://fs.blog/mental-models/

darkerside4 tahun yang lalu

It would be neat to make this a little more interactive. Let people post comments about how they've used them successfully, and allow star ratings.

dorfsmay4 tahun yang lalu

Minto pyramid is really interesting to me because, although I had never heard of it before, I tend to read articles from the end for this exact effect.

I also studied math this way, trying to do the exercises, looking at the answers and throughout the materiel to complete them, then read the materiel for start to finish. Any time I tried to read first I wasn't able to grab the concepts.

revicon4 tahun yang lalu

I met Barbara Minto at a small dinner several years ago. She is an amazing person and had great stories from her time in consulting. I’ve used her system so many times when I’m having trouble putting a complex situation into words

nine_k4 tahun yang lalu

Doesn't every scientific paper follow this rule? An abstract to quickly give the key ideas, an intro describing these key ideas in more depth, the gory details for those interested in methodology and repeatability.

It's a great format; I wish most non-fiction followed it.

d234 tahun yang lalu

This reminds me of the inverted pyramid style of journalism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_pyramid_(journalism)

Unless I'm trying to do something stylistic, I pretty much always try to structure my writing this way. Especially technical writing.

HellsMaddy4 tahun yang lalu

I’m seeing a lot of good systems thinking recommendations here, and I would add “Thinking in Systems” by Donella H. Meadows.

At the moment, I am particularly interested in finding good books and resources on communication. Especially verbal, critical, collaborative communication, and receptiveness/openness. Team and interpersonal focused stuff. There are so many resources out there, but I’d like to hear about what other HN users have found useful.

ChrisArchitect4 tahun yang lalu

(2020)

Submitted 3 times in the past month alone

Some previous discussion from a few years back when this was newer https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23339830

darekkay4 tahun yang lalu

If you want to consume the Untools content via a daily RSS feed, check out my project: https://tips.darekkay.com/

[deleted]4 tahun yang lalu

austin3626674 tahun yang lalu

I'm using this one, https://heptabase.com/

wanderingmind4 tahun yang lalu

Looks nice, but may I ask how is it different from Freeplane which is also a mindmap but FOSS.

cal854 tahun yang lalu

I haven't tried either yet, I've just taken a look... But I'd say 'looks nice' downplays a pretty major difference. Heptabase appears to be in a completely different league of UI quality. UI quality is pretty central to the functionality of visual knowledge management. It's not a software category in which you can reasonably separate form and function into separate concerns.

thegabriele4 tahun yang lalu

Too bad they don't offer a free trial (with a lot of limitations, of course).

ramoz4 tahun yang lalu

Wow, such an effective & relevant overview. I’m 30yo, and this is first time I’ve ever subscribed to a website newsletter.

dukeofdoom4 tahun yang lalu

Needs a Youtube video on each model.

rawgabbit4 tahun yang lalu

Video for Cynefin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N7oz366X0-8 Cynefin argues (a) well defined problems are the realm for automation - if this then that. (b) slightly complicated problems are the realm of architects - waterfall and project plans. (c) very complex problems are the realm of experimentation - capitalism and its creative destruction, minimum viable prototypes, wisdom of the market. (d) chaos

jjn20094 tahun yang lalu

an (audio)book of this would be great

BigElephant4 tahun yang lalu

How does an audio book help here? A lot of these require visuals to understand.

[deleted]4 tahun yang lalu

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