Start triggers conservatively — 3-5 daily activations, not 30 — build trust through relevance before expanding sensitivity

Why This Is a Rule

Trigger sensitivity follows the same dynamic as notification systems: too many activations and you start ignoring them all (alert fatigue), too few and you forget the system exists. The optimal starting point is conservative — 3-5 activations per day — because every activation that produces a relevant response builds trust in the trigger, while every activation that gets ignored teaches your brain to dismiss it.

This is the precision-vs-recall trade-off from information retrieval applied to behavioral triggers. High sensitivity (trigger fires often) produces high recall (catches all valid moments) but low precision (many false activations). Low sensitivity (trigger fires rarely) produces high precision (every activation is relevant) but low recall (misses valid moments). For new triggers, precision matters more than recall: you'd rather catch 5 of 20 valid moments and respond to all 5 than catch 20 of 20 and ignore 15, because the ignoring pattern trains your brain to dismiss the trigger.

The "more conservative than feels right" framing corrects for a systematic calibration bias: when designing triggers, people imagine themselves at peak motivation and attention, producing triggers calibrated for best-case conditions. In practice, triggers need to work during average conditions — tired, distracted, unmotivated. Conservative starting thresholds accommodate the real conditions rather than the planning fantasy.

When This Fires

• When initially deploying any new behavioral trigger — calibrate conservatively
• When a trigger fires so often you've started ignoring it — reduce sensitivity
• When designing monitoring-based triggers (posture checks, mood tracking, focus intervals)
• When adjusting trigger sensitivity after initial deployment

Common Failure Mode

Launching triggers at maximum sensitivity: "I want to be mindful of my posture at all times, so I'll set a reminder every 10 minutes." By hour two, you're dismissing posture reminders without reading them. The trigger has become noise, and you've trained the neural pathway that ignores it. Recovering from alert fatigue is harder than starting conservative — you have to rebuild trust that was actively destroyed.

The Protocol

(1) When deploying a new trigger, set the threshold more conservatively than your initial instinct. If you think every 15 minutes → start at every 2 hours. If you think 10 times a day → start at 3. (2) For the first week, track: how many activations per day, and what percentage produced a relevant behavioral response? (3) If >80% of activations produce responses → the trigger has earned trust. Gradually increase sensitivity (add 1-2 more daily activations per week). (4) If <50% of activations produce responses → the trigger is firing too often. Reduce further until precision rises above 80%. (5) The goal is asymptotic: start narrow, expand only as trust builds. 3 relevant activations teach your brain "this trigger matters." 30 irrelevant activations teach your brain "this trigger can be ignored."