Making a decision is like booking a flight. The longer you wait, the more expensive it becomes. Plus, last-minute decisions cost you more than money — your bill also includes time, mental energy, and even sleep.

That’s why common sense suggests we make our decisions early and fast. But of course, this is easier said than done mainly because of two common obstacles:

1. We feel overwhelmed so we put off our decisions for later. This tendency is often a combination of inner fears and a pinch of laziness.
2. When we finally decide to make a decision, we want it to…

Ellen Wengert recognized the man sitting at her desk but didn’t know why he was there. Had the company replaced her during summer vacation? That pessimistic guess was wrong but the reality wasn’t any better. Turns out, Nathan didn’t come to replace Ellen; he was there to build her replacement.

Ellen’s friend worked for an automation company that customized software to mimic white-collar jobs. As a data processor in a small health insurance firm, Ellen moved email requests around the company’s databases.

It took Nathan several months to reproduce every work sequence Ellen performed. Finally, the algorithmic version of Ellen…

If startups were basketball teams, Paul Graham wouldn’t be a coach. He’d be the guy who coaches the coach.

Cool comparison but who exactly is Paul Graham?

Paul Graham is a writer. He types code and essays. The former translated into a web app Yahoo bought for $49 million and the latter feed a blog that attracts 25 million views per year.

In 2005, Graham and three of his friends founded YCombinator — a startup accelerator that helped launch over 2,200 companies. Although 20% of YCombinator’s babies didn’t survive, its success rate beats the hell out of the average 90% failure rate among startups.

Even more impressive, several…

On a fateful day of September 1983, a man called Gianfranco Becchina walked inside the Getty Museum in California. He carried two things, a stack of papers proving his ownership of an ancient Greek statue and the intention to sell it.

Becchina left his meeting with a smile on his face and a few days later, his kouros arrived at the museum's delivery room.

A kouros is a Greek statue that represents a nude young male standing straight with his left foot forward. There are no more than 200 kouroi worldwide and most of them are badly damaged. …

At the end of June 2020, I sat in front of my boss and told him I wanted out. Coming from an immigrant who couldn’t afford a suit for his first day at the job, it must’ve felt like a prank. Except it wasn’t.

It wasn’t a glorious moment either. When you give away a fancy engineering CV and the salary that comes with it for a side hustle that may turn into a disaster, the first voice you hear is your inner critic.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” it’d yell. “Writing online, huh? You’re nuts. …

It was a regular Thursday afternoon for Alex Tunbridge until his phone rang.

“Hi there. This is Burger King. We’d love to sponsor your soccer team.”

Was it a prank? Why would a multinational like Burger King want to sponsor a club sitting at the very bottom of England’s football division? Stevenage club’s CEO had no answers to these questions. Still, he agreed to hear what the royal burger had to say.

At the time, Tunbridge had no idea his decision would translate into a game-changing campaign for both his club and their new sponsor.

Can’t Afford It in the Real World? Do It in a Game

Sponsorship is a big deal…

In Greek mythology, there’s a dragon-like monster called Hydra. It has many heads and every time you cut off one, two more would grow. Studying decision-making is a lot like fighting a Hydra.

Whenever you take down a misconception, uncover a mental trap, or beat a bad habit, new ones appear and the endless battle continues.

Sure, it’s impossible to defeat the decision Hydra but you can put a good fight. Here are 36 insights that will sharpen your mental weapons.

1. Your mind’s favorite sport is to jump to conclusions. Whenever possible, slow down to analyze the situation.
2. Analysis for…

I owe a lot of things to video games. They taught me English, patience, and several life lessons one of which is, “The shortest path isn’t always straightforward.”

UPS might have some gamers among its executive team. The delivery company has a strange rule that aligns with the phrase I just mentioned. “Unless it’s necessary, never turn left.”

Such a restriction may sound like a random whim but in reality, it’s a genius move — one that’s worth more than $50 million per year.

What’s wrong with turning left?

Before we get into it, let’s clear some fog here. We’ll be talking about right-hand driving…