Concepts
The irreducible epistemic atoms underlying the curriculum. 4,828 atoms across 8 types
Emotion as Systematic Cognitive Modulator
Emotional states systematically distort perception and judgment in specific, predictable directions (fear increases perceived uncertainty and threat while decreasing control; anger does the opposite), serving as necessary somatic markers that guide attention and activate state-dependent memory networks rather than mere sources of error.
Externalize competing thoughts as separate labeled…
Write down competing thoughts as separate, explicitly labeled statements rather than attempting to reconcile them internally, because working memory cannot hold two positions while simultaneously evaluating them.
Feeling of 'thorough consideration' is a warning signal…
When you feel you have 'thoroughly considered' a decision, treat that feeling as a warning signal requiring additional externalized inventory, because WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is) creates confidence from narrative coherence rather than completeness.
Filter thoughts by 'which is newest?' not 'which…
Replace emotional intensity as your thought-filtering criterion with informational value by asking 'which thought is newest?' and 'which thought changes what I should do?' rather than 'which thought is loudest?'
Extract and classify every assumption before committing…
Before committing resources to a plan, extract every assumption it depends on and classify each by importance (would the plan fail if this is wrong?) and vulnerability (how likely is this to be wrong?), then test assumptions marked both high-importance and high-vulnerability first.
Defending the whole plan when one part is challenged…
When someone challenges one part of your compound plan and you defend the whole thing, treat this as a diagnostic signal that you're still operating on fused ideas rather than independent assumptions.
If a belief flips three times without converging…
When a belief revises three or more times in a short period without converging, treat this as a diagnostic signal that you are reacting to surface events rather than updating a deeper model.
Document 2-3 pre-mortem failure modes with every…
For significant decisions, add a fifth field documenting pre-mortem risks (2-3 specific ways the decision could fail) to preserve concerns that hindsight bias will erase.
Prioritize blocking decisions by cost of delay…
For decisions blocking three or more downstream dependencies, calculate cost of delay by multiplying the decision's delay duration by the combined capacity waiting idle, then prioritize decisions by this metric rather than by perceived importance.
When commitments exceed capacity, only three fixes work
When commitment-to-capacity ratio exceeds 1.0, intervene only through cut (remove commitment entirely), defer (move to future period with capacity), or delegate (transfer to someone else)—productivity techniques cannot solve overcommitment caused by arithmetic mismatch.
When overloaded, ask the requester
When utilization exceeds 85% and a high-stakes request arrives, respond with the trade-off question format: 'If I add this, which of my current commitments should I deprioritize?' directed to the requester with decision authority.
Read logs for five minutes before proposing theories…
Before acting on snap judgments during debugging or incident response, read system logs and dashboards for five minutes without proposing theories to prevent hypothesis anchoring from corrupting observation.
Automate only fully-specifiable tasks — if it needs…
Automate only tasks where the rule can be stated completely (fixed rule, known inputs, predictable outputs) and execution requires no judgment about exceptions or novel cases.
Write down your mood and expectation before high-stakes…
Before high-stakes observations (meetings, decisions, analyses), write down your current mood and strongest expectation about the outcome to make perceptual filters visible for later comparison against actual observations.
After strong reactions, record facts and interpretations…
After any event producing strong reactions, spend 90 seconds recording observations in a two-column format (left: camera-recordable facts, right: interpretations) before analysis, because this separation prevents retroactive rewriting of evidence to fit conclusions.
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.
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.
When expert intuition locks on, ask
When expert pattern recognition locks onto a familiar solution, force consideration of alternatives by asking 'I see X—but what if it is not X? What would I expect if it were Y?' before committing.
Wait 48 hours before acting on ambiguous decisions…
For decisions under genuine ambiguity, impose a mandatory 48-hour waiting period before acting unless you can specify concrete significant costs of delay.
Before waiting on a decision, write tripwires — what…
Write explicit tripwire conditions specifying what observations would resolve ambiguity in each direction before entering any strategic waiting period.
Execute cuts during the audit session itself — deferral…
Execute all identified cuts during the audit session itself rather than creating a deferral list, as audit outputs are decisions implemented immediately not intentions documented for later.
Define goals and criteria before using AI for signal…
When using AI for signal detection, provide explicit goals and evaluation criteria first, then use AI to scale pattern recognition, because AI without human-defined goals produces generic output from noisy channels.
When angry, seek disconfirming evidence — anger inflates…
When angry, deliberately seek disconfirming evidence and independent risk assessments, as anger systematically inflates certainty, deflates risk perception, and increases risk-seeking behavior.
Use 5-minute cyclic sighing before stressful situations…
Deploy 5-minute cyclic sighing (prolonged exhalations at ~6 breaths per minute) before difficult meetings or after stressful news to reverse stress-induced perceptual narrowing.