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Summary of Uncharted 

4.2 . 251 reviews

Short summary

“Uncharted: How to Navigate the Future” by Texas-born world-renowned TED speaker Margaret Heffernan is filled with everything you need to courageously face the future. In this book, Heffernan, a professor at the University of Bath, explores the people and organizations who are undaunted by uncertainty and ambiguity. We are addicted to prediction, desperate for a certain future. But the complexity of modern life won’t provide that. History doesn’t repeat itself, and even renowned experts aren’t comfortable to forecast more than 150 days into the future. Tomorrow is uncharted territory, and uncertainty remains an inseparable part of life, but Heffernan explains how we can forge ahead with agility. According to her, preparing to confront a variable future is the antidote to passivity and prediction.

Table of content

  • Summary of Uncharted
  • About the author
  • What is Uncharted about?
  • Who should read Uncharted
  • Topics in Uncharted
first key point

The future is unknowable — uncertainty is an inherent part of the human experience

Listen the first key point
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As humans, we are obsessed with the future. We think about it every single moment. When should I leave the house to get to work early? What should I have for dinner? Where can I go on vacation? No matter how hard we try to live in the present, we can’t do anything at all without thinking ahead. Even the news we read is full of speculations as to what will happen in Congress, in traffic, in the markets, in the sporting sector, and so on.

We are wired to anticipate whether we’ll like this food, this person, that book. A lot of industries — property, travel, banks, insurance, pensions, technology — are built around our curiosity for the future. These industries analyze, construct, and sell us permutations of the future.
It’s virtually impossible for us to not think about the future: neither our brains nor our lives will allow it.
Our devices are filled with apps that promise to give us a degree of accuracy in plotting routes, choosing hotels, restaurants, and lovers. We have come to expect the future to be as predictable as possible.

And then life always happens — it rains after all, the train is late, traffic is held up by a crash, the neighborhood is noisy, the job is hateful, and the election doesn’t go our way. A pandemic breaks out of the blue. From time to time, the predictability of life, on which we’ve come to depend, seems to fall away, leaving us angry, intolerant, and fearful.

It is time we embrace the fact that the future has never been perfectly knowable, and will never be. The human brain may be the single most complex object in the universe, but it’s not beyond mistakes. Technology may currently be in its most advanced form, but it is imperfect, too. Modern technology is incomplete, biased, and full of error.

Ineradicable uncertainty remains an indispensable part of humanity, and it’s the defining characteristic of the future. This fact always leaves us uncomfortable and anxious. And it’s why humans have always searched for ways to see what’s coming.
Unique or rare external events may render what was formerly predictable suddenly unforeseeable, where historical data is irrelevant or useless. ~ Margaret Heffernan
second key point

Instability makes us so uncomfortable that we are willing to do anything to eliminate them

Our innate desire to reduce uncertainty and doubt has driven much of our progress as a species. However, this incessant longing for certainty leaves us susceptible to pundits and prophets: experts and forecasters who claim superior knowledge. And as history has always shown, no one can accurately foresee the future.
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third key point

Believing that history repeats itself puts us at a great disadvantage

fourth key point

Scenario planning is a great tool for navigating a complex world full of contingencies

fifth key point

The life of artists shows us how we could address the future with imagination and independence

sixth key point

Cathedral projects are always successful despite the level of uncertainty they face

seventh key point

Conclusion

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What is Uncharted about?

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Do you find yourself staring at your computer for long minutes, unaware of time slipping by? Do you enter a room and suddenly cannot remember why you stepped in the first place? Is it a herculean task for you to sit through ten pages of a book without reaching for your phone? If yes, your focus needs some work and fast.

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Do you find yourself staring at your computer for long minutes, unaware of time slipping by? Do you enter a room and suddenly cannot remember why you stepped in the first place? Is it a herculean task for you to sit through ten pages of a book without reaching for your phone? If yes, your focus needs some work and fast.

Actually, yours is not a unique situation. Many adults like you have issues concentrating on a given task. However, in this fast-paced world of ours, you can’t afford to be not focused at all times. Thankfully, this article comes to your rescue! With the tips and tricks from Hyperfocus by Chris Bailey, you will get in the top percent of folks who have mastered the art of concentration.