“We can do anything you want, but we can’t do everything you want.”
The was the classic “dad-ism” that I heard frequently when I was growing up, and it gets at the fundamental problem driving us to feel so consistently overwhelmed today’s information ecosystem — we simply don’t have the time or energy to deep dive into every one of the hundreds of daily decisions we need to make.
Behavioral scientists call this decision fatigue — the mental exhaustion that builds from making repeated choices. And while we feel that fatigue clearly at the end of a long day, what’s less obvious is that we also make worse decisions as our energy is sapped.
So how can thinking empirically help us make better decisions without burning ourselves out?
The answer isn’t working harder. It’s changing how we approach problems in the first place:
- The first key is deciding what’s important right now and, just as importantly, what you’re not going to worry about. We can do anything but not everything, and prioritization is what keeps us from getting overwhelmed.
- The next key is adopting a growth oriented mindset. Simply put, this means starting with the belief that improvement is possible. A fixed mindset quietly shuts down learning before it begins — if you believe you “just aren’t someone who’s good at this”, there’s no reason to test, iterate, or improve.
- Finally, you need to follow a structured process for learning. Rather than guessing or reacting, empirical thinking means approaching problems systematically — setting learning goals, testing ideas, and using feedback to guide the next step. Structure reduces uncertainty and builds confidence in what you’ve learned.
And that’s what Thinking Empirically is all about — focusing on what’s most important to you, approaching it with curiosity and optimism for growth, and following a reliable playbook for how to make progress. It’s not the fastest route to an answer, but in return for your extra effort you’ll gain clarity, confidence, and a lot less mental noise.
So if you’ve got a problem to solve and are ready and willing to tackle it, it’s time to head over to the Thinking Empirically Framework to get started.
Thinking Empirically 