Mental models

While not aligned with Jedi teachings, the following mental models are great frameworks for reasoning about people, decisions, and systems. They are shortcuts of sorts to deeper learning but useful in guiding the newer generations.

1. Parkinson’s Law — Work expands to fill the time allotted. Give a task two weeks, it takes two weeks.

2. Hofstadter’s Law — Everything takes longer than you expect, even when you account for Hofstadter’s Law.

3. Hanlon’s Razor — Never attribute to malice what’s adequately explained by incompetence (or someone just not reading the email).

4. Pareto Principle — 80% of results come from 20% of effort/clients/causes. Your revenue concentration in a nutshell.

5. Peter Principle — People get promoted until they reach a role they’re bad at, then stay there.

6. Hick’s Law — More choices = slower decisions. Why good product menus are short.

7. Goodhart’s Law — When a measure becomes a target, it stops being a good measure. See: every sales KPI ever gamed.

8. Dunning-Kruger — The less you know, the more confident you feel. Expertise breeds humility.

9. Occam’s Razor — The simplest explanation is usually right. Don’t overbuild the theory.

10. Chesterton’s Fence — Don’t remove a rule/process until you understand why it was put there.

11. Brooks’s Law — Adding people to a late project makes it later. Onboarding + coordination costs are real.