I don’t know about you, but I certainly feel myself slipping into the complexity bias, especially when a task or project feels large or important.
I found
this article to be a helpful guide to identifying the bias and attempting to overcome it.
Develop a bias for action over research. You don’t have to fully understand a concept to get started. Instead of seeking perfect knowledge at the start, take an iterative approach to your endeavors: Try things, see how they work, and slowly improve over time. It’s the fastest way to learn. Done is better than perfect.
Choose the system you’ll stick with. It may be that intermittent fasting is objectively the best way to burn fat or that GTD is the ideal way of organizing your tasks, but it won’t do you any good if you can’t stick to it long-term. Look for
systems that work with your natural inclinations, even if they aren’t the “best” way of doing things.
Apply Occam’s Razor. Occam’s Razor states that, when faced with two possible explanations for the same evidence, the one that requires the fewest assumptions is most likely to be true. While there are exceptions to every mental model, Occam’s Razor is a good rule of thumb for counterbalancing the complexity bias.
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