I’m interested in everyday applications like noticing bias in commercial media as well as word-of-mouth and social media. Are there any principles or methods you know of that you’d consider especially important?

I’m also interested in any recommendations for online training.

Edit: Wow! Since there are some great suggestions in the comments, I'd like to summarise them here:

• Primary sources and secondary sources (fefellama)
• Engagement (BeanBurrito)
• Under The Influence by Terry O'Reilly [podcast] (chocobean)
• Influence, marketing, motivation, bias, dark patterns, corruption, phrasing and choice of words (chocobean)
• Multiple sources. Verbalise your thought process / question yourself (hobofarmer)
• Advanced Placement English. Ethos, pathos, logos (Wisix)
• Learning how to hold and study concepts without internalizing them. Not becoming emotionally dependent on “being right”. (bet)
• Flaws in perception and processing. The Scout Mindset by Julia Galef: "the motivation to see things as they are, not as you wish they were" (Landhund)
• Fact checking, exercises such as mock trials (chizcurl)
• Not assuming that critical thinking transfers across domains (daywalker)
• Falsifiability, scientific psychology, psychological bias, cognition / emotion / behaviour (daywalker)
• 'Very Short Introductions' series by Oxford Press (daywalker)
• Many ways to conceptualise "critical thinking". Appreciating the humanity of other people. (mieum)
• Self reflection and acknowledgement of diversity (mieum)
• The Unpersuadables: Adventures with the Enemies of Science [book] (gaywallet)
• Being Wrong: Adventures on the Margin of Error [book] (boxer_dogs_dance)
• Be curious and ask questions (Markpelly)
• Empathy facilitates understanding and tempers reactivity (Aerrol)
• Nobel disease or Nobelitis (saturnV)

What I mean by short/immediate thinking vs. long-term.. let's take the experience of learning a new skill (for example, riding a bike). In the beginning, the skill is difficult as you're carving out those new neural pathways in your mind. It's grating, unnatural, uncomfortable. It seems that the rational way to think about this experience is "yes, it feels uncomfortable right now, but if I keep attempting this, eventually the discomfort will lessen, and it will get easier. It won't be like this forever." For myself (and I assume some others?), I instead get stuck in a mindset of only seeing the present moment: "this sucks and therefore it will always suck!" Yeah, I can catch myself thinking this way and correct it to consider the long-term, but that's not my default. My default is short term, now, only now.

You could expand this to so many things: enduring temporary struggles and not letting them get you down (the situation isn't permanent, it will change), not partaking in addictive behaviors (deciding not to do something that might feel good, because you're considering the long term consequences), procrastination... list goes on and on. To me, it always seems rational to consider long term impact of your actions. If you don't, it seems you're blowing off this entire swath of information which could/should inform your decisions in the present moment.

On the flipside, I'm not saying you should only think of the future and disregard the present... just when making decisions, it seems better to consider both, that's all..

I have been trying for 10 months to change this about myself, yet I continue to slip back into this pattern of constant "now" thinking. I know it leads to irrational decisions. I'd love to hear others thoughts on this. Have you struggled with this? If so, how did you manage to overcome these thinking patterns? For anyone: are you more naturally a "now" thinker, or are you lucky enough to naturally consider the long-term, or maybe you bounce between both? I have no idea if this is a common experience, or if it means something is inherently irrational about the way I think.