4 Books That Will Help You Take High-Quality Decisions In All Aspects Of Life.

There are exactly two things that determine how our lives turn out: the quality of our decisions & luck. The realm of luck doesn't fall under the things we can control. But we do have control over our decision-making process & thus a significant amount of control over our lives.

Most people struggle with making well-informed decisions. They frequently associate good outcomes with good decisions, without considering the process. The biases that we hold don't help either. These books will give you the frameworks to make high-quality decisions.

1. Thinking In Bets: A bet is a decision about an uncertain future, and this book treats all decisions as bets. By thinking of decisions as bets, we can avoid common traps, learn more rationally from results, and keep emotions out of the process as much as possible.

The book promises that by following this framework we can get better at separating outcomes quality from decision quality, discover the power of saying "I'm not sure", learn strategies to map out the future, and become less reactive decision-makers.

2. The Art of Thinking Clearly: Humans are irrational beings driven by emotions rather than logic. Every day we make irrational decisions and most of the time we are not even aware of it. It is our nature to listen to stories, not to process statistics.

We hold biases in our heads due to our conditioning and make the same systematic errors in every decision. This book reveals 99 systematic errors in our thinking, and judgment, and suggests actionable ways to avoid them and transform your decision-making at work, and home.

3. Essentialism: This book is about pausing constantly and asking Am I investing my time in the right activities? It’s a relentless pursuit of less & learning to filter through all options & select only those that are truly essential. It's designed to bring clarity to your life.

Essentialism is not some ideology that you have to add to your overstuffed life, it’s a lifestyle, a simpler way of doing everything. It is not something you do occasionally but you have to make it a part of your identity and decision-making process.

4. Thinking Fast And Slow: This book is a result of 40 years of work by psychologist Daniel Kahneman and he has managed to deliver a brilliant, fascinating, and at times intimidating account of human judgment. It's one of the fundamental books on decision-making.

The central argument of the book is that the human brain has two systems: systems 1 and 2. It explains the role of these systems/modes of thinking. This book can make you a better thinker and decision-maker, & make you aware of the cognitive biases that hinder our reasoning.