Easy mistake

Warning

Calling people out for "stupid mistakes" or "rookie mistakes" tends to result in people getting defensive, covering up their mistakes. Thus it is advisable to use the term Easy Mistake.

Unlike the many other kinds of mistake, a easy mistake is one that is:

Some examples:

Easy mistakes are embarrassing

Particularly in team video games, if you are spotted repeatedly performing a mistake, you'll likely be called stupid, told to "stop being stupid" or some variant. This counterintuitively often results in you continuing to repeat the mistake, perhaps because of performance pressure from so many team members now looking at you, or to spite the person who called you stupid.

It's important in rectifying stupid mistakes that they are not personal failings, but the result of chains of events and reactions leading to an outcome. For that outcome to not occur, the chain of events and reactions must change

Some people refuse to do drills that could improve their easy mistakes because they believe the drills will make them look foolish. One coach solves this by making students foolish on purpose, citing that looking foolish in front of the team is better than looking foolish at a competition[1]

Fixing easy mistakes improves skill dramatically

Easy mistakes are frequent amongst all skill practitioners, usually even up to 90th percentile. Thus, identifying and fixing stupid mistakes is among the simplest and most important methods for becoming top percentile. Some examples of rapid skill ascent from fixing easy mistakes:

Identifying easy mistakes

pull request retro

Further reading of stupid mistakes

Dan Luu has written about them extensively in 95% isn't that good

Psyche.co considered the base reason for stupid mistakes: Why some of the smartest people can be so very stupid


  1. 95%-ile isn't that good
    Dan Luu ‧ 2020 February ‧ danluu.com ↩︎