Thinking fast and slow.. .What a great title for a book.. no ?  I’m reading a book by that name by Daniel Kahneman. and Israeli-American psychologist. He won the 2002 Nobel prize in economics for his work on Prospect theory.. that work is about human behavior in the face of known and unknown risks. This book is also about decision making .. its about how we make decisions between snap judgments and deep thought.. In some ways its like an academic version of Malcom Gladwells ‘Blink’.. but it also seems to take issue with Gladwell.  He implies that some of our snap decisions are actually based on mental laziness and boas. I have to confess.. the book is a bot low going for me.. Even though I read fiction pretty quickly …My brain can fill in the gaps you skim over in fiction (or so I believe) .  but  I read non fiction at about a tenth the speed. because i have to understand it before I go on..Kahneman would call that ‘slow thinking’..

I’ve been thinking slowly about thinking slowly these days. I’m finding that I’m not making enough time to think deeply all the time. I’ve been trying to schedule time to think about certain work topics.. I block my calendar for those periods, but I ind I’m lacking the discipline to follow my intent.. I often find myself talking on the phone or doing email during these precious periods of calendar freedom. Kahneman would say it’s because thinking is hard.. and because I (and probably most folks) are lazy. it actually takes more energy to think hard.. so our minds and brains are biased against it.

Anyway.. that’s what I was thinking about today when I should have been thinking about work..

how’s that for irony.. ?

Nite all, nite sam

-me