Twaddle Tendency

Charlie Munger's term for the human tendency to spend time on trivial, unimportant matters while avoiding difficult, important ones—gravitating toward easy conversation, easy problems, and easy decisions while the hard ones go unaddressed. In meetings: discussing office logistics for 45 minutes and strategic direction for 5. In personal development: reading productivity books instead of doing productive work. In organizations: perfecting processes that contribute 5% of value while ignoring processes that contribute 80%. Twaddle is the path of least resistance—it feels productive while avoiding the cognitive and emotional cost of engaging with what truly matters.

When to use it

When time is consumed by trivial matters while important ones are neglected; when meetings focus on easy topics while avoiding difficult ones; when personal productivity feels high but important outcomes aren't advancing; when the path of least resistance is producing the least value.

How it can help

Build anti-twaddle discipline by explicitly prioritizing hard-important over easy-unimportant. The practices: (1) Start meetings with the hardest, most important topic (not logistics and updates). (2) Protect your best cognitive hours for your most difficult work. (3) Apply the Eisenhower matrix honestly: is this important or just easy? (4) Track time allocation against value contribution—the gap reveals your twaddle budget. The meta-practice: when you notice yourself gravitating toward easy tasks, treat it as a signal that something hard and important is being avoided.