Notice when things are important
Quality warning: still practicing writing things very quickly.
I think the most important general skill might be noticing when things are important.
In a strategy context, it means noticing when some kind of activity or change is really going to move the needle on your goals.
In a friendship context it means being able to tell when something is important to the other person or will affect them a lot.
In thinking and learning it’s knowing what considerations and facts are likely to really impact your final conclusions, and which are incedental.
In arguing it’s figuring out what your sticking points or ‘cruxes’ are with the other person.
In making the world a better place, it’s noticing things like the fact that the scope of an action’s effects have an overwhelming influence on whether you should do it.
In a happiness context it’s noticing what actually makes a material difference in you own life.
How do you notice when things are important?
Sometimes you can do it by reflecting explicitly or investigating empirically — e.g. in work if I want to know what my team should focus on, I can spend time investigating what activities have led to us getting the most attention in the past from people who can use our advice for good, and what kinds of advice or information they have found most useful.
Sometimes you just need to remember to ask the question — e.g. when you’re about to invest in something for yourself, say a new exercise routine, it should perhaps trigger you into asking whether doing so actually gets you toward something important (and is important for getting you there). In this case it’s a habit of remembering to ask.
On the other side here, you can also ask if the investment is important. E.g. can you get it cheaper? Or whether it’s really that big of an investment — e.g. if you’re trying going to a gym for 2 weeks to see if it makes you like exercise better, isn’t that actually a pretty trivial cost?
Sometimes the key is paying enough ongoing attention. If you’ve been paying attention to your friend and what they need on a regular basis, you’re a lot more likely to notice when something is important to them.
In some cases it’s practice. If you have enough arguments you can begin to notice naturally what’s really keeping you from agreeing (that is, so long as you remember to actually aim for agreeing). When reading you can practice asking yourself what’s really ‘doing the work’ in the case the author is making. Try objecting to something in your head - could the author say “fine, but still?” If so, it’s probably not worth thinking much about.
