My favorite rule of thumb

We humans are prone to seeking silver bullets for all kinds of things. That’s why there are so many rules of thumb, systems, and methodologies. They allow us to outsource thinking, to memorize a heuristic and cut mental costs by using it. And that’s great - I’m all in for energy efficiency.

But it’s so easy to get carried away relying on rules! We humans also have this tendency of getting too lazy energy efficient, too reliant on rules and heuristics.

That’s why my favorite rule of thumb is: when in doubt, think. (I learned about it from Maxim Dorofeev)

It might sound tautological, but it’s really, really useful. It’s a sort of anti-heuristic - remembering and using it makes you not rely on other heuristics too much.

With LLMs posing a danger of us getting even more lazy energy efficient by outsourcing some of our mental work, I think this rule is ever more important.

Not only because it helps you stay in shape, thinking-wise. It also helps retain more of you in your work and your life, shaping it with your own efforts, not with rules, systems, and models made by others.

My feeling is that is going to matter a lot more in a couple of years from now.