Maxims for Thinking Analytically Quotes

“If you focus on people’s shortcomings, you’ll always be disappointed”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“1 – Thinking Straight Maxim 1 - When you are having trouble getting your thinking straight, go to an extreme case Maxim 2 - When you are having trouble getting your thinking straight, go to a simple case Maxim 3 – Don’t take refuge in complexity Maxim 4 - When trying to understand a complex real-world situation, think of an everyday analogue 2 – Tackling Uncertainty Maxim 5 - The world is much more uncertain than you think Maxim 6 - Think probabilistically about the world Maxim 7 - Uncertainty is the friend of the status quo 3 – Making Decisions Maxim 8 - Good decisions sometimes have poor outcomes Maxim 9 - Some good decisions have a high probability of a bad outcome Maxim 10 - Errors of commission should be weighted the same as errors of omission Maxim 11 - Don’t be limited by the options you have in front of you Maxim 12 - Information is only valuable if it can change your decision 4 – Understanding Policy Maxim 13 - Long division is the most important tool for policy analysis Maxim 14 - Elasticities are a powerful tool for understanding many important things in life Maxim 15 - Heterogeneity in the population explains many phenomena Maxim 16 - Capitalize on complementarities”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“When you are having trouble getting your thinking straight, consider an extreme or simple case. This will often give you the insight you need to move forward. More generally, make a problem as simple as possible without losing its essence – but no simpler. The world is full of uncertainty, much more than you think. Almost every important decision you make will be in the face of uncertainty. Therefore, learning to think probabilistically (assessing subjective probabilities of various scenarios and updating these probabilities with new information) is a critical life skill. Because of uncertainty, some good decisions will result in poor outcomes. In fact, for some decisions there are no good outcomes. Your job will be to choose the option likely to lead to the least bad outcome. Also, resist the tendency to dislike more the errors resulting from your actions (errors of commission) than the errors resulting from your inactions (errors of omission). These two types of errors are equally bad; what matters is their consequences, not their source.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“Practice asynchronous reciprocity”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“For example, the value of fertilizer for a farmer is likely to be higher if other inputs (seeds, irrigation, farming practices, etc.) are available. The value of a blackboard in a school will depend on the availability of other school inputs (such as chalk, teachers, classrooms, etc.). In economics terms, the situations described above exhibit positive cross-partial derivatives.[80] In fact, when Richard teaches this maxim to his students, he refers to it as “capitalize on positive cross partial derivatives,” a much more technical formulation intended to be playful and memorable.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“Often times, I find myself or others around me making decisions based on absolutes instead of thinking marginally. Are those extra five hours of work worth the extra money when compared to spending an extra five hours with family? Of course, having a job and earning a decent living are good things, but usually we forget to ask ourselves whether that additional time spent doing such and such is worthwhile”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“famous saying among policy analysts is “let me pick your options, and I will make the decision for you,” which illustrates the importance of keeping an eye out for a better option.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“Thinking probabilistically about the world involves three distinct elements: 1)    Understanding what these subjective probabilities actually mean (as we saw above), 2)    Assigning probabilities to many things (events, beliefs, etc.) in our lives, to help us better understand the world around us and make better decisions, and 3)    Updating these probabilities appropriately when relevant new information comes in.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“tacit knowledge – “that which we know but cannot say.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“If we cannot judge the quality of the decision by the quality of the outcome, how should we judge it? The key is to understand what information you had (or could have had) at the time you made the decision, and then determine whether given this information you chose a path that would maximize the expected value of your decision. The formal procedure for doing this is to draw a decision tree with nodes for choices and chance events, the probabilities associated with each chance event, and the outcomes associated with each branch of the tree.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“What can I do to control an outcome? That’s the wrong question. What can I do to influence the odds? Now that’s productive. That I can work with – in my life and in my job.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“Accepting that everything is effectively uncertain and that my thoughts, hopes, and actions can at best indirectly influence the world by influencing probability distributions: this has brought me a kind of peace through acceptance, and a greater mastery over the world around me.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“As a doctor, you come to find, however, that the struggle for caring for people is more often with what you do not know than what you do. Medicine’s ground state is uncertainty. And wisdom — for both patients and doctors — is defined by how one copes with it.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“5 – Living Fully Maxim 17 - Strive hard to avoid envy – see your friend’s success as your gain Maxim 18 - Do your best to banish regret Maxim 19 - Make pleasure-enhancing decisions long in advance, to increase the utility of anticipation Brief but important maxims for a satisfying life”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“Three important concepts to understand policy: Long division (how much bang for the buck) helps you decide among competing policy options. Elasticities (the change in one quantity associated with a change in another quantity) allow you to think at the margin, which is crucial for making good decisions. Look at subgroups within a population to better understand the group’s overall patterns. Three ideas for living more fully: Try not to be envious. Do your best to eliminate the detrimental feeling of regret, which lowers your pleasure and leads you to poor decisions. Remember that you can increase the enjoyment you get out of a pleasant experience by anticipating it and recalling it often.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“Richard once told me a story about viewing a new piece of furniture arriving in his home fairly early in his marriage. Richard asked Sally, “How much did this cost?” Sally replied, “You don’t want to know.”[87] Richard realized that in fact he did not want to know and inquired no further.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“There are some things you just don’t want to know”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“Strive to make the right decision; afterwards you’ll make your decision right”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“Maxim 19 Make pleasure-enhancing decisions long in advance, to increase the utility of anticipation”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“You have fallen victim to this fallacy if you have ever followed through with plans to go to the theater just because you already purchased the tickets (even though the weather is foul and the play has received poor reviews). Or you hold on to a bad investment (or even worse, put in additional money) because you had already made the investment. Or you continue a personal relationship, though the relationship has soured, just because the relationship has persisted many years.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“The sunk cost fallacy occurs when you use the fact that you have previously invested resources (time, money or effort) on an activity to justify further investment in the activity.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“Maxim 18 Eliminate regret”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“From that day on I stopped comparing myself to my peers and started to actively take joy in the success of others. Not only has this made me a happier person in my professional life, but also in my personal interactions. Indeed, I have found that rejecting envy helps you appreciate others more, and helps build lasting friendships and relationships. I hope that my friends and family know that I’m their biggest cheerleader and I always will be, thanks to Richard.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“If we are constantly measuring our self-worth relative to the performance of those around us, we will always feel we fall short.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“Bertrand Russell’s claim that “envy is one of the most potent causes of unhappiness.”[81]”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“Maxim 17 Strive hard not to be envious – see your
friend’s success as your gain”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“The most important maxim Richard taught me is one I never heard him pronounce but always saw him practice: engage with people from different fields, interests, mindsets, countries, and ages.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“One key application of this maxim arises when we choose a collaborator, for example in an intellectual project or in business. As Richard frequently argues, we often choose people whose skills are similar to our own. The result is that the gains from collaboration are much smaller than if we were to choose people who would bring different capabilities to the undertaking. If two engineers are planning the construction of a bridge, adding a third engineer to the team won’t help as much as adding an architect or a project manager.”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“Maxim 16 Capitalize on complementarities”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser

“Maxim 15 Heterogeneity in the population
explains many phenomena”
― Dan Levy, Maxims for Thinking Analytically: The wisdom of legendary Harvard Professor Richard Zeckhauser