Lessons tagged “errors”
17 published lessons with this tag.
Overconfidence is the default calibration error
Your brain does not fail randomly. It fails in a specific, measurable, predictable direction: too much confidence. Across decades of research, in every population tested, the dominant calibration error is overconfidence — believing you know more than you do, that your estimates are more precise than they are, and that your performance exceeds what it actually achieves.
Typing adds constraints that prevent errors
Assigning types to objects restricts what operations make sense on them.
All systems produce errors
No process works perfectly every time — error correction must be built in from the start.
Error detection precedes error correction
You cannot fix what you cannot detect — invest in error detection mechanisms.
Distinguish error types
Execution errors knowledge errors and judgment errors require different correction approaches.
Fail fast fail cheap
Design systems that surface errors early when they are easiest and cheapest to correct.
Error budgets
Accept that some error rate is normal and define how much error is tolerable.
Root cause analysis for recurring errors
When the same error happens repeatedly fix the root cause not just the symptom.
The five whys technique
Asking why five times in succession usually reaches the root cause of a problem.
Checklists prevent known errors
A checklist is an error prevention agent that catches predictable mistakes.
Pre-flight checks
Reviewing key conditions before starting a task catches errors before they propagate.
Error cascades
Small uncorrected errors can trigger chains of increasingly large errors.
Error patterns reveal system weaknesses
Recurring errors point to structural problems not personal failures.
Automate error detection where possible
Use tools and systems to catch errors that manual vigilance misses.
Error correction has a cost
Every correction takes time and energy — reduce the error rate rather than just correcting faster.
Feedback from errors is the most valuable feedback
Errors teach you more about your systems than successes do.
Build error tolerance into expectations
Expecting perfection creates fragility — expecting and handling errors creates resilience.