Concepts
The irreducible epistemic atoms underlying the curriculum. 4,828 atoms across 8 types
Log the emotion, substitute activity, and rationalization…
For each avoided task that persists beyond 48 hours, log the emotion triggered, the substitute activity performed, and the rationalization constructed, as these three elements constitute the replicable structure of personal avoidance patterns.
Extract your replicable success pattern from 5 fields…
For each genuine success in the past two years, document conditions present, behaviors that differed from defaults, people involved, internal state, and 48-hour setup—then surface elements appearing in three or more instances as your replicable success pattern.
For persistent problems, study the exceptions — when did…
When a problem persists across multiple attempts, identify exceptions where the problem was absent or reduced rather than analyzing why the problem occurs, as exception conditions are more directly actionable than problem mechanisms.
Before starting a project, cross-reference your success…
Cross-reference your success pattern elements against your upcoming project plan before starting work, building in the overlapping conditions deliberately rather than hoping they emerge, as replication requires engineering.
Life transitions are habit-redesign windows — old cues…
During major life transitions (moves, job changes, context disruptions), deliberately redesign behavioral patterns rather than waiting for them to reform automatically, because environmental cue disruption creates a window where habits are more amenable to conscious redesign.
Read all notes without editing first, then extract themes…
When reviewing notes for patterns, read through all entries without editing or organizing first, then extract recurring themes on a separate page, to prevent premature categorization from filtering out emergent structures.
Validate patterns with three filters
Before concluding a pattern is meaningful, verify it survives three independent filters: sample size check (occurrences vs. opportunities), base rate comparison (frequency vs. background rate), and alternative explanation generation (minimum two alternatives).
Keep separate Candidate and Confirmed pattern lists…
Maintain two separate lists—'Pattern Candidates' and 'Confirmed Patterns'—promoting candidates only after they survive three independent observations, one alternative-explanation check, and one successful prediction.
Project daily patterns forward 365 times before deciding…
Project each daily pattern forward using compound math (what does 365 repetitions produce?) before deciding whether to maintain or change it, because linear intuition systematically underestimates exponential outcomes.
Monthly
Audit your daily pattern portfolio by labeling each recurring behavior as appreciating (+), depreciating (-), or neutral (=), then make exactly one trade per month (reduce one depreciating pattern by 50%, install one appreciating pattern at minimal scale).
Apply the two-hour test to urgency
When something arrives marked urgent, apply the two-hour test by asking what happens if you address it in two hours instead of immediately—if the answer is 'nothing changes,' defer it.
Tier your information sources
Create a three-tier source hierarchy—5-10 daily sources (Tier 1), 10-20 weekly sources (Tier 2), everything else checked only on specific need (Tier 3)—and review monthly, demoting sources that haven't changed your thinking.
Track every urgent-feeling demand for a week — your false…
Run a daily urgency log for one week, recording every urgent-feeling demand with timestamp, then scoring each on actual time-sensitivity and impact-if-delayed-two-hours to build calibration data on false urgency rates.
Filter messages by 'does this serve my goal?' — skip…
When scanning incoming messages with a defined goal, ask whether each item directly serves that goal—if yes process it, if no skip/archive/batch it—and do not evaluate whether it's 'interesting' or 'might be useful someday.'
One source at full depth per week beats ten at surface…
Process one information source at full depth (notes, connections, could-explain-to-others) per week rather than ten sources at surface level to build signal detection capacity in your critical domains.
Delegate peripheral scanning to AI, reserve deep attention…
Use AI to scan peripheral domains weekly and deliver filtered summaries, while reserving human attention for 2-3 deep engagements per week in your core signal domains.
Write your target and set a 5-minute timer before opening…
Before opening any social media platform, write down your specific intended information target and set a 5-minute timer; when the timer fires, close the app regardless of whether you found the target.
Strip emotional language from triggering information…
When information triggers strong emotion, restate it with all emotionally loaded language stripped before evaluating whether the neutral version warrants the reaction the framed version produced.
Pair every important outcome with 1-2 leading indicators…
For each important outcome you care about, identify one lagging indicator (the outcome) and pair it with 1-2 leading indicators (upstream behaviors that predict it), tracking both to validate the predictive relationship.
When the leading indicator improves but the outcome…
When a leading indicator improves but its paired lagging outcome does not follow within the expected timeframe, treat the leading indicator as broken (gamed, confounded, or non-predictive) and replace it.
Test understanding by generating three examples…
Before claiming to understand a complex topic, generate at least three concrete examples from different domains that instantiate the concept, and if you cannot produce varied examples, treat this as evidence that you have acquired vocabulary without understanding.
After an information fast, sort inputs
After each information fast, document three specific categories: inputs you genuinely missed, inputs you craved but didn't need, and inputs you forgot existed, then eliminate or downgrade items in the latter two categories.
Quarterly
Schedule quarterly depreciation reviews where you scan captured notes and bookmarks for information that has exceeded its useful life, then either update with current data, archive with context, or delete entirely to prevent outdated information from corrupting current decisions.
Write 'This connects to [X] because [Y]' after consuming…
After consuming any piece of information, write one connecting sentence that relates it to existing knowledge using the structure 'This connects to [X] because [Y]'; if you cannot write this sentence within two minutes, classify the content as non-compounding noise regardless of its intrinsic quality.