每日原则：综合分析眼前的形势
每一天你都遇到无数事情纷至沓来。暂且把这些事情称为“点”。为了做到高效，你必须能分清哪些“点”重要，哪些不重要。一些人毕生收集各种零零碎碎的看法和观点，而不是只保留自己需要的。他们有“细节焦虑症”，忧虑不重要的事情。
有时小东西也是重要的，比如，你汽车发动机里咯咯响，可能只是一片塑料松了，也可能是正时皮带要断了的迹象。关键是要有更宏观的视角，这样才能对真正的风险程度做出快速准确的判断，而不会陷在细节中不可自拔。
a. 你能做的最重要的决定之一是决定问谁
确保他们是可信的人，对情况的了解全面。无论你想理解什么，找到负责这方面的人，问他们。请教不了解情况的人还不如找不到答案。
b. 不要听到什么信什么
观点很廉价，几乎所有人都愿意和你分享观点。许多人会把观点表述为事实。你要区分观点和事实。
c. 所有东西在眼前的时候都感觉更大
在生活的所有方面，正在发生的事情都似乎很大，回头来看则不然。所以你应该跳出去以看到全局，有时候可以过一段时间再做决定。
d. 不要夸大新东西的好处
例如，在选择看什么电影、读什么书时，你倾向于时间证明的经典还是最新的轰动性作品？在我看来，选择最好而不是最新是更聪明的做法。
e. 不要过度分析细节
一个“点”只是来自一个时刻的一条数据，你综合分析的时候始终要看到大局。就像你需要区分大小、特定事件与总体规律一样，你也需要知道从每一个“点”能得到多少知识，而不是高估其重要性。
Every day you are faced with an infinite number of things that come at you. Let’s call them “dots.” To be effective, you need to be able to tell which dots are important and which dots are not. Some people go through life collecting all kinds of observations and opinions like pocket lint, instead of just keeping what they need. They have “detail anxiety,” worrying about unimportant things.
Sometimes small things can be important—for example, that little rattle in your car’s engine could just be a loose piece of plastic or it could be a sign your timing belt is about to snap. The key is having the higher-level perspective to make fast and accurate judgments on what the real risks are without getting bogged down in details.
a. One of the most important decisions you can make is who you ask questions of.
Make sure they’re fully informed and believable. Find out who is responsible for whatever you are seeking to understand and then ask them. Listening to uninformed people is worse than having no answers at all.
b. Don't believe everything you hear.
Opinions are a dime a dozen and nearly everyone will share theirs with you. Many will state them as if they are facts. Don’t mistake opinions for facts.
c. Everything looks bigger up close
In all aspects of life, what’s happening today seems like a much bigger deal than it will appear in retrospect. That’s why it helps to step back to gain perspective and sometimes defer a decision until some time passes.
d. New is overvalued relative to great.
For example, when choosing which movie to watch or what book to read, are you drawn to proven classics or the newest big thing? In my opinion, it is smarter to choose the great over the new.
e. Don't oversqueeze dots.
A dot is just one piece of data from one moment in time; keep that in perspective as you synthesize. Just as you need to sort big from small, and what’s happening in the moment from overall patterns, you need to know how much learning you can get out of any one dot without overweighing it.
