‘I think, therefore I am’, as the French philosopher Descartes famously wrote. By which he meant that we know we exist precisely because we have the ability to question whether we exist. All very philosophical, however it underlines the fact that thinking is at the very root of who we are.
So it follows that the more clearly, effectively and coherently we think, the better we are able to live. Happiness and success can flow from good thinking in a way we struggle to achieve if our thought processes are muddled, messy, incoherent. Our thoughts influence our feelings, so it is important to get this foundation right. Once you can think well, you have the basis on which to build the rest of your life.
This is not a book of tips and strategies for thinking. There are lots of those out there, and some of them are very useful, but you won’t find many of their techniques here. This book is different – it’s about your mindsets, your ways of thinking. It’s about understanding why you think as you do and using that insight to improve the way you think. To adapt a traditional saying: ‘Give a man a thought and you feed his brain for a day. Teach him how to think, and you feed his brain for life’, I want to pass on a lifetime of observations and experience about the kinds of thinking that really work for people. The habits that turn you into a first-class mind. A Rules thinker.
And it is all about habit. We spend all our waking life thinking, so we stop monitoring how we’re doing it. We get sloppy without even noticing. When you take your driving test you consciously do everything just as you’ve learnt it, but by the time you’ve been driving a few years you’re crossing your hands on the steering wheel, slipping the clutch … you’ve stopped thinking about it. That’s great for all the bits you’re still getting right – it’s good news that you can now steer instinctively – but when it really matters you’ve forgotten some of the key skills without even knowing it.
Whether or not we learnt good thinking habits as children, we still need to monitor the way we think. We can learn new skills, brush up the rusty ones, drop the bad habits we’ve got into. Researchers have recently discovered that it takes a good 66 days to embed a new habit. That’s just over two months. It was a proper scientific study with no agenda so there’s no reason to doubt its findings,1 although of course it’s an average figure and doesn’t necessarily take into account whether or not the new habit is useful or enjoyable, or whether it’s a weekly or an hourly habit, which must make a difference. Still, it’s evident that you can learn to think smarter as a matter of course if you practise the Rules for a couple of months or so (there’s a section at the end of the book to help you with how to do this). The difference in your life and your work will be apparent as soon as you start, before the 66 days or so that turn it into a habit are up.
It won’t all become unconscious after that, though, because as you read the book you’ll realise that a lot of the Rules of Thinking are about being conscious of your thought processes. A lot of the problem of messy thinking stems from the fact that we’re not aware of how our brains are working and we need to get more of a handle on that if we want to send our thoughts down the right paths. Once this becomes habit, it isn’t the effort it might sound like. For one thing, we generally put effort into thinking even when we’re doing it badly, so you’ll mostly be redirecting the same amount of effort. For another thing, being a Rules thinker doesn’t mean you can’t ever switch off, have downtime, veg out in front of a screen. Of course you can – your brain needs a rest from time to time, same as your body.
The habit of monitoring your thinking is really about questioning yourself, and observing how your mind is functioning, because of the insights that brings. For example, if you and your partner argue about whose turn it is to do the dishes, it’s easy to wind each other up. Regardless of who actually does the dishes in the end. A Rules thinker questions why they are wound up and asks themselves, ‘Why have I just had this argument? What’s really happening?’ Very few Arguments about the dishes are actually about the dishes. They’re about feeling taken for granted, or being expected to fit gender roles, or feeling exploited. Until you’ve thought that through, the dishes might be clean, but you haven’t actually addressed the problem. So no surprise then that next time the dishes need doing, the argument will blow up all over again.
Some smarter ways of thinking make you feel happier and more resilient and others help you to organise more effectively or make better decisions. Rules thinking will improve your creativity and your problem-solving skills, and your ability to analyse, evaluate and critique intelligently. Thinking smarter will have a positive impact on every part of your life – at home, at work, in your relationships.
To some extent, this book isn’t about how to think at all. Many of the Rules are about how to remove the barriers that get in the way of good, clear thinking. How to avoid self-interest, sidestep assumption, dodge the pitfalls. Once you do that, it’s easy to think clearly.
It would be implausibly convenient if there just happened to be exactly 100 Rules of Thinking. So these are the key 100, which are more than enough to change your thought patterns significantly for the better. Once you’ve mastered these Rules, you’ll be much better placed to notice more of your own. Please feel free to share them on my Facebook page, if you’d like to, and help other people join you as a fully fledged Rules thinker.
Richard Templar