An excellent way to improve one's skill as a rationalist is to identify one's strengths and weaknesses, and then expend effort on the things that one can most effectively improve (which are often the areas where one is weakest). This seems especially useful if one is very specific about the parts of rationality, if one describes them in detail.

In order to facilitate improving my own and others' rationality, I am posting this list of 11 core rationalist skills, thanks almost entirely to Anna Salamon.

Actually want an accurate map, because you have Something to protect.

Keep your eyes on the prize. Focus your modeling efforts on the issues most relevant to your goals. Be able to quickly refocus a train of thought or discussion on the most important issues, and be able and willing to quickly kill tempting tangents. Periodically stop and ask yourself "Is what I am thinking about at the moment really an effective way to achieve my stated goals?".

Entangle yourself with the evidence. Realize that true opinions don't come from nowhere and can't just be painted in by choice or intuition or consensus. Realize that it is information-theoretically impossible to reliably get true beliefs unless you actually get reliably pushed around by the evidence. Distinguish between knowledge and feelings.

Be Curious: Look for interesting details; resist cached thoughts; respond to unexpected observations and thoughts. Learn to acquire interesting angles, and to make connections to the task at hand.

Aumann-update: Update to the right extent from others' opinions. Borrow reasonable practices for grocery shopping, social interaction, etc from those who have already worked out what the best way to do these things is. Take relevant experts seriously. Use outside views to estimate the outcome of one's own projects and the merit of one's own clever ideas. Be willing to depart from consensus in cases where there is sufficient evidence that the consensus is mistaken or that the common practice doesn't serve its ostensible purposes. Have correct models of the causes of others’ beliefs and psychological states, so that you can tell the difference between cases where the vast majority of people believe falsehoods for some specific reason, and cases where the vast majority actually knows best.

Know standard Biases: Have conscious

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