For this magazine’s August 2021 issue, I wrote an article titled, “Take A Minute,” where I discussed some valuable advice about slowing things down and analyzing the situation around you. The initial inspiration came from a time where my captain and I were rushing to swap airplanes and when we thought we were done, he sat us down and had us do nothing for a whole minute. Taken out of the hectic environment, both of us were able to collect our thoughts and break the mindset that leads to rushing and carelessness. The article also discussed in-flight scenarios where it was imperative to act immediately, distinguishing them from those where taking your time and working through all your options was more beneficial.
Well, wouldn’t you know: Soon I was sitting in recurrent training and we started discussing aeronautical decision-making (ADM) and crew resource management (CRM). A slide pops up about Naturalistic vs. Optimum Decision-Making. Part of me was bummed that my article did not have an even remotely original thought. Another, larger part was intrigued that what I discussed in that article had a fancy name and was heavily studied by psychologists. Even more interesting, it was not necessarily geared toward aviation.
