Michael Mauboussin on intuition, technology, and making better decisions. In this inaugural episode, we explore:
- How Michael structures his day (and which elements are absolutely essential to fit in no matter what’s on his plate)
- How “chunking” his time when performing tasks seems to result in a more productive day
- What role intuition plays in making big decisions and when it should be minimized
- How deliberate practice can help hone our intuition so we can lean on it when it matters
- How to audit your decision making process so you continually get better
- Effective ways to challenge the status quo in your organization, even if you’re at the bottom of the totem pole
- Tools and methods Michael uses with his children to encourage them to think for themselves
- How technology affects our decision making processes both positively and negatively
- The books that most influenced Michael’s life and why they mean so much to him
Read the full article here by Farnam Street
Q3 hedge fund letters, conference, scoops etc
When To Trust Your Gut: Michael Mauboussin on Intuition, Technology, and Making Better Decisions
Transcript
Welcome to the host chamber and the author of The Farnam Street Blog a website dedicated to mastering the best of what other people have already figured out. Knowledge Project is an experiment. Most interesting guest from a wide range of disciplines is to better expand our minds. Before we get started with the first episode. I just want to take a minute to comment on the premise of the show. Our guest all of is one of the better thinkers. Think you know I thought Michael would be the perfect person to start the series. Not only is he a managing director at Credit Suisse but he’s also a teacher and a writer. He’s done a ton of research on decision making. He’s written two books I absolutely love to think twice and the success equation. I’m not aiming to have these conversations long and drawn. Rather I want to pick the brain of the person on the other side. There will be fillers or some episodes be shorter and some be longer. I need me to walk away with increased understanding to master the best of what other people have already figured out if you will. Topics will focus on things like innovation leadership and making better decisions but perhaps more importantly I’ll also explore philosophy questions of life and what it means to live a good life. You can leave comments online at Farnam Street for Twitter Facebook dot com slash farm trade. Before we get started here’s a word from our sponsor.
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Michael welcome. Thank you so much for agreeing to come on the first episode of The Knowledge Project. I’m happy to have you. Thanks Shanteau thrilled to be with you. I was wondering if maybe we could start with your daily routine. What’s that like.
Well you know every day is a little bit different for me but there are probably a couple key elements. And you know for me one of the key starting points is always sleep. So I’m one of those guys that actually needs to sleep and doesn’t function as well without sleep. And I went to wrong in my life without figuring that out. So for me at least eight hours is really important for me to be functioning effectively. I’m a lot of the time is usually normal days. Usually doing research and reading things. So I actually am one of those guys who spends very little time watching TV. I do watch things like sports from time to time but most of the time is spent reading and trying to do some research. So a typical workday that is. And the other thing I’ll say that’s really super important to me is is physical activity. So I try to try to work out a number of times a week I’m actually appreciate this as a Canadian I’m a hockey player so I like the Grado a week or two. I might add another two we can try to play skate with a skate with the fellas and so forth. So I think that those those balances between sleeping well trying to eat well exercising and then spending a lot of time reading is typical and productive day for me.
That’s awesome. Do you chunk your time like when you’re reading. Do you do that in increments of like what would be your kind of time that you set aside for that and some days are better than others.
I’ll tell you it’s interesting mostly when I may be more indicative when I go away on vacation for instance I will almost always be very methodical about chunking large blocks for reading specifically at work it’s a little bit more haphazard of course because things are coming and going and calls and meetings and so but whenever possible I’m obviously much more effective at writing and and reading and chunks. And I’ll mention one little side story in this the first book I wrote I coauthored this is now you know a dozen years ago or no more. More than that actually 17 or 18 years ago. And I thought that I could do it a bit on the fly you know a little bit here a little bit there and what I realized is for my sustained effort and attention I really do need to block out and chunk. So for me.
