By Their Very Nature, Heuristic Shortcuts Will

When People Think Of The Outcomes Of Their Decisions, They Think Much More Short Term Than That. They Think In Terms Of Gains And Losses.

Spend Some Effort In Figuring Out Why Each Decision Did Or Did Not Pan Out. Doing That Systematically Is Key: Really Try To Question The Way You Make Decisions, And Improve It.

We Were Required To Predict A Soldier's Performance In Officer Training And In Combat, But We Did So By Evaluating His Behavior Over One Hour In An Artificial Situation. This Was A Perfect Instance Of A General Rule That I Call Wysiati, "what You See Is All There Is." We Had Made Up A Story From The Little We Knew But Had No Way To Allow For What We Did Not Know About The Individual's Future, Which Was Almost Everything That Would Actually Matter. When You Know As Little As We Did, You Should Not Make Extreme Predictions Like "he Will Be A Star."

The Effort Invested In 'getting It Right' Should Be Commensurate With The Importance Of The Decision.

Economists Think About What People Ought To Do. Psychologists Watch What They Actually Do.