About This Equilibrium Recipe
First Principles: First principles thinking is a way to reverse-engineer complicated situations by separating underlying facts from assumptions. The idea is that if you know the first principles of an issue, you can build the rest of your knowledge around the essentials to produce something new
Min Experiment Commitment: 7 Days
Potential Benefits: Creativity, Clarity
The Equilibrium Recipe
APPLYING FIRST PRINCIPLES THINKING
Flip to the bullet notebook section of your journal
Define your biggest problem in detail
Identify your current assumptions
Strip the problem down to its most fundamental principles
Take only the essentials and create a solution from scratch
Why This Recipe works
When confronted with big issues, it’s easy to default to societal thought patterns. The problem is, other people’s thoughts and opinions, however insightful, are noisy and can frequently prevent us from seeing the problem clearly.
By applying first principles thinking to the big issues in our lives, we approach problem-solving from a new place and allow our own unique experiences to shape how we create solutions.
Your turn! What’s the biggest problem in your life right now, and how are you approaching the problem and creating solutions to overcome them?
