每日原則：使用原則

使用原則既能簡化也能改善你的決策。儘管讀到現在你也許覺得這顯而易見，但值得反覆重申的是，要明白幾乎所有“眼前的情況”都是“類似情境的再現”，要識別“類似情境”是什麼，然後應用經深思熟慮得出的原則來應對。透過這麼做，你必須做出的決策的數量將大大減少（我估計約減少為十萬分之一），你的決策質量將大大提升。把這做好的訣竅是：

（1）讓你的思維慢下來，以注意到你正在引用的決策標準。

（2）把這個標準作為一項原則寫下來。

（3）當結果出現時，評估結果，思考標準，並在下一個“類似情境”出現之前改進標準。

識別每個“類似情境”的類別，就像識別一種動物所屬的物種一樣。識別每一件事，然後選擇對其適用的原則，會變得像在玩遊戲一樣，所以這樣做既是很有用的，也是很有趣的，當然也可能具有挑戰性。許多我所說的“眼前的情況”都具有混合性質。當眼前的情況裡包含多個“類似情境的再現”時，你必須權衡不同的原則，運用“頭腦藍圖”來思考對遇到的不同型別情況如何處理。為了幫助人們這麼做，我創制了一個稱為“教練”的工具，我將會在以後分享出來。

你可以用自己的原則，也可以用別人的，只需要把能發現的最好的原則用好。如果你養成了這樣的思維習慣，你將成為一個卓越的有原則的思考者。

Using principles is a way of both simplifying and improving your decision making. While it might seem obvious to you by now, it’s worth repeating that realizing that almost all “cases at hand” are just “another one of those,” identifying which “one of those” it is, and then applying well-thought-out principles for dealing with it. This will allow you to massively reduce the number of decisions you have to make (I estimate by a factor of something like 100,000) and will lead you to make much better ones. The key to doing this well is to:

1. Slow down your thinking so you can note the criteria you are using to make your decision.

2. Write the criteria down as a principle.

3. Think about those criteria when you have an outcome to assess, and reﬁne them before the next “one of those” comes along.

Identifying which “one of those” each thing is is like identifying which species an animal is. Doing that for each thing and then matching it up with the appropriate principles will become like playing a game, so it will be fun as well as helpful. Of course it can also be challenging. Many “cases at hand,” as I call them, are hybrids. When a case at hand contains a few “another ones of those,” one must weigh diﬀerent principles against each other, using mental maps of how the diﬀerent types of things I encounter should be handled. To help people do that, I created a tool called a Coach, which I’ll be sharing soon.

You can use your own principles, or you can use others’; you just want to use the best ones possible well. If you think that way constantly, you will become an excellent principled thinker.