Decision-Making on Rafiul Alam

How to Think: 10 Mental Models for Sharper Reasoning

Mon, 16 Feb 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Most of education teaches you what to think. Almost none of it teaches you how to think.

Yet the quality of your thinking determines the quality of your decisions, and your decisions determine the trajectory of your life.

Here are 10 mental models that fundamentally change how you approach problems.

1. First Principles Thinking

Strip away assumptions. Reason from fundamental truths.

Most people think by analogy: “This is like that, so I’ll do what others did.” First principles thinking asks: “What do I know to be absolutely true? What can I build from there?”

Learning When to Use Which Skill: The Art of Contextual Judgment

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 00:00:00 +0000

I had just learned about microservices.

They were amazing. Scalable. Independent. Deployable separately. The future of architecture.

So naturally, I rewrote my side project as microservices.

The project: A simple todo app. Maybe 100 users.

What I built:

7 separate services
Docker containers for each
Kubernetes for orchestration
API gateway
Service mesh
Distributed logging
Service discovery

Time to build: 3 weeks

Time to build as a monolith: 2 days

My manager saw it and laughed.

Amazon's 6-Pager: Why Jeff Bezos Banned PowerPoint

Sat, 15 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It’s 9 AM. You walk into a conference room at Amazon for a major product decision.

No one is talking.

Everyone is reading.

For 20 minutes, the room is completely silent. Executives, directors, engineers-all reading the same six-page document.

No PowerPoint deck. No bullet points. No presenter standing at the front of the room.

Just reading.

Then, after everyone finishes, the discussion begins.

Welcome to Amazon’s most powerful cultural practice: the 6-pager.

Digital Hoarding: The Psychology of Never Deleting Emails, Files, or Code

Mon, 03 Feb 2025 00:00:00 +0000

You have 37,482 unread emails.

14,000 photos on your phone (5,000 screenshots you’ll never look at again).

A Downloads folder with 2,000 files dating back to 2014.

42 browser tabs open right now.

7 note-taking apps, each with hundreds of notes you’ll never revisit.

You tell yourself: “I might need this someday.”

You never do.

But you can’t delete it.

Welcome to digital hoarding-the modern epidemic of keeping everything and finding nothing.

The Bay of Pigs: How Groupthink in Kennedy's White House Led to Disaster

Sat, 25 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

In April 1961, just three months into his presidency, John F. Kennedy approved one of the most catastrophic military operations in U.S. history.

1,400 Cuban exiles, trained and equipped by the CIA, would invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. They would spark a popular uprising, overthrow Fidel Castro, and install a democratic government.

That was the plan.

The reality? The invasion failed within 72 hours. Most of the brigade was killed or captured. No uprising occurred. The U.S. was humiliated internationally. Castro’s regime was strengthened, not weakened.

Dominant Strategies: The Easy Way to Win Every Time

Wed, 22 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Imagine a game where one strategy is best no matter what your opponent does. You don’t need to predict their behavior, guess their intentions, or outthink them. You just pick the dominant strategy and you’re done.

This is the simplest situation in game theory-and when you have a dominant strategy, your decision becomes trivial. Let’s understand this powerful concept.

What is a Dominant Strategy?

A dominant strategy is a strategy that gives you a better outcome than any other strategy, regardless of what your opponents do.

The Abilene Paradox: When Everyone Agrees to Something Nobody Wants

Mon, 13 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

It’s a hot summer afternoon in Coleman, Texas. A family is relaxing on the porch, playing dominoes and enjoying the fan.

The father-in-law says, “Let’s drive to Abilene for dinner.”

Nobody really wants to go. It’s 53 miles away in 104°F heat, in a car without air conditioning.

But nobody speaks up.

The wife says, “Sounds good to me.”

The husband, not wanting to disappoint, says, “Sure, I’m in.”

The mother-in-law agrees.

The Challenger Disaster: How Groupthink Killed 7 Astronauts

Tue, 07 Jan 2025 00:00:00 +0000

On January 28, 1986, millions of Americans watched the Space Shuttle Challenger lift off from Kennedy Space Center.

Among the seven crew members was Christa McAuliffe, a high school teacher chosen to be the first civilian in space. Students across America watched live from their classrooms, excited to see their teacher reach the stars.

Seventy-three seconds into the flight, Challenger exploded.

All seven crew members died instantly. The nation was devastated.

Apple's DRI: The Simple Rule That Eliminates Confusion and Drives Accountability

Tue, 17 Dec 2024 00:00:00 +0000

You’re in a meeting at Apple.

The agenda has 12 items.

Next to each item is a name.

iOS notification improvements: Sarah Chen

Battery optimization: Marcus Rodriguez

App Store review process: Jennifer Wu

That name isn’t the person who does all the work.

It’s the person who is directly responsible for that outcome.

One person. Completely accountable.

Not a committee. Not a team. One person.

If it succeeds, they get credit. If it fails, it’s on them.

Psychology Short Collection: Hidden Systems - Esoteric Methods

Wed, 06 Nov 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Obscure methods and mental models that change how you think about thinking. Each one a tool most people never discover.

The Zettelkasten Method

Note-taking system that builds a “second brain.”

The origin: German sociologist Niklas Luhmann used it to write:

70 books
400+ academic articles
In 40 years

He said his productivity came from his Zettelkasten (slip-box).

How it works:

Fleeting notes: Capture ideas immediately
Literature notes: Summarize what you read (in your own words)
Permanent notes: One idea per note, written clearly
Link notes: Connect related ideas
Index: Entry points to chains of thought

The magic: Your notes become a thinking partner.

Social Proof: Why We Follow the Crowd (Even When It's Wrong)

Mon, 21 Oct 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I once spent $299 on a course I never watched.

Not because I needed it. Not because I researched it. Not because it fit my learning style.

I bought it because I saw “47,329 students enrolled.”

My brain did the math: “47,000 people can’t be wrong. This must be good.”

Spoiler: It wasn’t good. For me, anyway. The content was basic, the pacing was wrong, and I could’ve learned the same material for free.

The Ikea Effect: Why We Overvalue Things We Build

Mon, 16 Sep 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I once spent three weeks building a custom CSS framework.

It had exactly the features I wanted. Perfect naming conventions. Elegant utility classes. Beautiful documentation.

I showed it to my team. They said, “Why not just use Tailwind?”

My response? “Because mine is better.”

Was it actually better? No. Objectively, Tailwind had:

More features
Better documentation
Larger community
More battle-testing
Active maintenance

But I couldn’t see that. All I could see was MY framework, MY design decisions, MY time invested.

Free Will: A Psychological Illusion? (What Neuroscience and Psychology Really Tell Us)

Fri, 28 Jun 2024 00:00:00 +0000

At 3:47 PM on a Tuesday, I decided to quit my job and start a company.

Or did I?

Maybe the decision was already made by unconscious neural processes seconds before I became aware of it.

Maybe my genes, my upbringing, my brain chemistry, and the exact configuration of neurons firing that afternoon determined that choice, and the feeling of choosing was just a story my brain told itself afterward.

Loss Aversion: Why We Fear Losing More Than We Enjoy Winning

Mon, 27 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I once turned down a $40,000 freelance contract because I was afraid of losing my $80,000 salary.

The math was simple: take the contract, it would take 3 months, that’s $160k annualized. Way better than my salary.

But my brain didn’t see “$160k potential.” It saw “giving up the guaranteed $80k.”

The fear of losing my steady paycheck was stronger than the excitement of potentially making more.

I said no. The person who took the gig finished it in 2 months, got referred to three more clients, and now runs a six-figure freelance business.

Groupthink: How Smart Teams Make Dumb Decisions

Mon, 15 Apr 2024 00:00:00 +0000

We were going to launch the feature on Tuesday.

Everyone on the team knew it wasn’t ready. The code was buggy. The UX was confusing. We hadn’t tested the edge cases. One of our engineers literally said in standup, “I’m not sure this is going to work well,” but immediately followed it with, “but I guess everyone else thinks it’s fine.”

The PM wanted to hit the deadline. The CEO was excited about the demo. The team had momentum. So we all nodded along.

The Paradox of Choice: Why More Options Make Us Miserable

Mon, 18 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I once spent three hours researching React state management libraries.

Redux. MobX. Zustand. Jotai. Recoil. XState. Valtio. Context API. useState. useReducer.

Each had passionate advocates. Detailed comparisons. Migration guides. Benchmark tests.

By hour three, I was paralyzed. Which one was “right”? What if I chose wrong? What if I regretted it?

I started with a simple problem: “I need to manage state in my app.”

I ended with decision fatigue, imposter syndrome, and zero lines of code written.

Sunk Cost Fallacy: Why We Can't Let Go of Bad Investments

Mon, 12 Feb 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I spent six months building a SaaS product that nobody wanted.

The code was beautiful. The architecture was solid. I’d invested countless nights and weekends. I’d turned down freelance work to focus on it. I’d told everyone it was going to be “the one.”

And the market response was… crickets.

Any rational person would’ve shut it down and moved on.

Instead, I spent another six months trying to “make it work.” I pivoted. I added features. I changed the pricing. I rewrote the landing page seventeen times.