17 Useful Ideas for the Rest of 2025

A collection of mental models, insights, and hard truths to help you navigate life with more clarity

The human mind is a prediction machine built for a world that no longer exists.

We evolved to survive on the savanna, but now we're trying to navigate stock markets, social media, and supply chains with the same cognitive toolkit our ancestors used to avoid lions and find berries.

This mismatch creates systematic blind spots. We make predictable errors in judgment, fall for the same psychological traps, and struggle with decisions our great-grandparents never had to face.

But the good news is, once you understand these patterns, you can work with your brain instead of against it.

Here are 17 distinct concepts from various disciplines that reveal how the world really works. These are established frameworks that have been tested, validated, and refined by researchers across multiple fields.

Think of them as software patches for your mental operating system.

1. Chesterton's Fence

In 1929, British writer G.K. Chesterton wrote:

"There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, 'I don't see the use of this; let us clear it away.' To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: 'If you don't see the use of it, I certainly won't let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it.'"

Before removing a fence, find out why it was put there in the first place. This principle warns against changing systems you don't fully understand.

Many seemingly pointless rules, traditions, and processes exist for reasons that aren't immediately obvious. Reform carefully… you might be preventing problems you can't see. Look before you leap.

2. Regression to the Mean

Victorian polymath Francis Galton discovered this in the 1880s while studying heredity. He noticed that unusually tall parents tended to have children who were closer to average height. They "regressed" toward the population mean. He called it "regression toward mediocrity", though the name later softened to "regression to the mean".

Extreme measurements tend to be closer to the average when measured again. A restaurant with an amazing meal might disappoint you the second time. A terrible day is usually followed by a better one. RTM explains why it’s unlikely that we will see any player like CR7 or Lionel Messi in a very long time.

Don't overreact to outliers. They're probably not the new normal.

RTM Graph

3. The Red Queen Effect

"It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place."

Named after the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking-Glass" (1871), who tells Alice: "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." Evolutionary biologist Leigh Van Valen borrowed this metaphor in 1973 to describe how species must constantly evolve just to survive as their competitors evolve.

Species must constantly evolve just to maintain their fitness as other species evolve around them.

In business and careers, this means continuous improvement isn't about getting ahead but about not falling behind.

4. Survivorship Bias

During World War II, statistician Abraham Wald studied damaged aircraft returning from missions. The military wanted to add armour where they saw the most bullet holes.

Wald realized this was backwards. They should arm the places with no bullet holes, because planes hit there didn't make it back. He was seeing only the "survivors".

We draw conclusions from success stories while ignoring failures, creating a distorted view of reality. We study successful entrepreneurs but ignore the 90% that failed.

We see old buildings that survived wars, but not the ones that were destroyed. Always ask:

What am I not seeing?

5. The Cobra Effect

During British colonial rule in India, the government was concerned about venomous cobras in Delhi. They offered a bounty for every dead cobra.

Initially successful, the program backfired when people began breeding cobras for income. When the government scrapped the program, cobra breeders released their snakes, worsening the original problem.

Incentives create behaviours, but not always the ones you want. Well-meaning policies can make problems worse when people game the system.

6. Moral Licensing

Psychologists Benoit Monin and Dale Miller coined this term in 2001 after experiments showing that people who demonstrated their moral credentials (like expressing support for minorities) were later more likely to act in discriminatory ways. Past good behaviour became a "license" for future bad behaviour.

After doing something good, people give themselves permission to do something bad. Bought organic food? Now you can skip the gym. Donated to charity? Now you can be rude to the cashier.

Past good behaviour becomes a license for future bad behaviour. Virtue is not a bank account you can withdraw from.

7. The Hawthorne Effect

Between 1924-1932, researchers at Western Electric's Hawthorne Works factory in Chicago studied worker productivity. They changed lighting, break schedules, and work hours, and productivity improved regardless of what they changed.

Workers were responding to being observed, not to the specific changes. The effect was named after the factory where it was discovered.

People change their behaviour when they know they're being observed. The original study found that factory workers became more productive when researchers were watching, regardless of what changes were made to their working conditions.

Being measured changes what you're measuring.

8. Network Effects

This concept emerged from studying telephone networks in the early 1900s. Engineer Theodore Vail realized that each new telephone user made the entire network more valuable for everyone else. Economist Robert Metcalfe later formalised this as "Metcalfe's Law".

The value of a network increases exponentially with each new user. One telephone is useless. Two telephones create one connection. Three create three connections. Four create six. Social media platforms, languages, and currencies all become more valuable as more people use them. Winner-takes-all dynamics often result.

9. The Streisand Effect

In 2003, photographer Kenneth Adelman took aerial photos of the California coast for environmental research. Barbra Streisand sued him for $50 million, claiming one photo invaded her privacy by showing her Malibu mansion.

Before the lawsuit, the photo had been downloaded six times (twice by Streisand's lawyers). After the publicity from her lawsuit, it was viewed over 420,000 times in a month.

Attempts to hide or censor information often make it more widely known. In the internet age, trying to remove information often amplifies it. Sometimes the cover-up causes more damage than the original problem.

10. Loss Aversion

Psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman identified this bias in the 1970s through simple experiments. They found that people felt roughly twice as much pain from losing $100 as pleasure from gaining $100. This became a cornerstone of prospect theory, which won Kahneman the Nobel Prize in Economics.

People feel the pain of losing something twice as strongly as the pleasure of gaining the same thing. This is why "save $50" is less motivating than "don't lose $50". It's also why people stay in bad situations… the fear of losing what they have outweighs the potential gains from change.

11. Cunningham's Law

"The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question but to post the wrong answer."

Named after programmer Ward Cunningham (inventor of the wiki), though he never actually said this. The "law" was attributed to him by Steven McGeady in 2010: "The best way to get the right answer on the Internet is not to ask a question, but to post the wrong answer."

Ironically, this demonstrates the principle itself. McGeady's incorrect attribution was quickly corrected online.

People are more motivated to correct others than to help them. This hack works because humans have a stronger drive to prove someone wrong than to help someone learn.

12. The Tocqueville Paradox

French aristocrat Alexis de Tocqueville observed in the 1850s that the French Revolution occurred when conditions were improving, not when they were at their worst. He noted that

"the most perilous moment for a bad government is when it seeks to mend its ways."

This counterintuitive insight became known as the Tocqueville Paradox.

As social conditions improve, people become more sensitive to remaining inequalities. Small injustices feel unbearable when most injustices have been eliminated.

This explains why societies often become more unstable as they become more prosperous. Rising expectations outpace rising conditions.

13. Goodhart's Law

"When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure."

British economist Charles Goodhart made this observation in 1975: "Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes." It was later rephrased as "When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure." Campbell's Law (1976) stated something similar, but Goodhart's version became more popular.

Schools optimize for test scores instead of learning. Companies optimize for quarterly earnings instead of long-term value. Social media optimizes for engagement instead of well-being.

Be careful what you measure… you'll get exactly that, often at the expense of what you actually want.

14. Cognitive Dissonance

Psychologist Leon Festinger coined this term in 1957 after studying a UFO cult whose predicted apocalypse failed to occur. Instead of abandoning their beliefs, cult members doubled down and spread their ideas more aggressively.

Festinger realized that when beliefs conflict with reality, people often change their interpretation of reality rather than their beliefs.

When our actions conflict with our beliefs, we experience psychological discomfort. To reduce this discomfort, we often change our beliefs rather than our actions. Someone who smokes will minimize health risks rather than quit.

Someone who makes a bad investment will seek confirming evidence rather than sell. Recognize this in yourself.

15. The Shirky Principle

Named after internet scholar Clay Shirky, who observed that "institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution." Shirky was studying how digital technology disrupted traditional media and noticed that established institutions resist changes that would eliminate their reason for existing.

Nonprofits fighting poverty have little incentive to eliminate poverty. Security agencies need threats to justify their budgets. This doesn't mean these institutions are evil(although in some cases they are).

It means they face structural incentives to perpetuate the problems they solve.

16. The Availability Heuristic

Psychologists Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman identified this bias in 1973. They found that people judge the likelihood of events based on how easily they can remember examples.

They named it the "availability heuristic" because judgments are based on what's mentally available, not what's statistically accurate.

Plane crashes feel more likely than car crashes because they get more media coverage. Planes that land safely don’t make the news. Rare diseases seem common if you just learned about them. Your perception of risk is shaped by what's memorable, not what's statistically likely.

17. The Fundamental Attribution Error

Psychologist Edward E. Jones coined this term in 1967 after experiments showing that people consistently attribute others' behaviour to personality traits while attributing their own behaviour to situational factors.

It's "fundamental" because this bias is so basic and widespread across cultures.

We attribute others' behaviour to their character, but our own behaviour to circumstances. When someone cuts you off in traffic, they're an asshole.

When you cut someone off, you were late for an important meeting. This bias destroys relationships and prevents learning from others' mistakes.

In a nutshell

These seventeen principles form a toolkit for understanding complex systems. They're practical frameworks for navigating a world that's more interconnected and unpredictable than ever before.

The beauty of these mental models is that they compound. Each new framework doesn't just add to your knowledge but also connects with what you already know, creating a web of understanding that's stronger than its parts.

But knowing about them intellectually is different from seeing them viscerally.

Develop an intuition for when they apply. To build the habit of asking:

"What pattern am I missing here? What mental model explains what I'm seeing?"

Most people navigate the world using a handful of mental models they absorbed unconsciously… usually from family, culture, or early experiences.

These implicit models work fine for familiar situations but break down when conditions change. The people who adapt best are those who actively collect better models and know when to apply them.

Reality is complex, but it's not always random. Beneath the chaos, patterns persist. Human nature has deep structures. Markets follow mathematical laws. Organizations evolve in predictable ways.

These principles help you see the structure within the complexity.

The ancient Greeks had a word for this kind of practical wisdom: phronesis. It's knowing what to do with knowledge. It's the ability to see patterns, understand contexts, and choose appropriate actions.

The world is drowning in information; phronesis is a must-have skill. These mental models are tools for developing it. Use them wisely.

---

I’m Bechem Ayuk, a professional ghostwriter. I ghostwrite weekly newsletters for C-suite executives.

Discover the outcomes I create for executives, and how we can work together.

Thank you so much for reading. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comment section. Make sure they’re brilliantly articulated.😉 I respond to every comment.

Mindcraft is a reader-supported publication. To support my work, consider recommending it to your network.

---

I built a practical framework to help you stop managing time and start collapsing it. Check it out: