Concepts
The irreducible epistemic atoms underlying the curriculum. 4,828 atoms across 8 types
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.
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.'
Define each priority level with a one-sentence operational…
Write a one-sentence decision rule for each priority type that defines membership criteria operationally before applying the types to any backlog.
If more than 20% of items are top priority…
Ensure that highest-priority items constitute less than 20% of total backlog; if more items are marked critical, recalibrate threshold definitions to restore differentiation.
Every priority system needs an explicit 'not now' tier…
Include an explicit 'not now' or lowest-tier priority type to prevent deferred items from inflating middle categories and to create visible records of deliberate exclusion.
Priority labels without response protocols are decoration…
Attach specific response protocols (timing, resources, escalation) to each priority type rather than treating them as descriptive labels, making priority actionable.
Surface trade-offs with forced-choice
When receiving requests that don't map to your top three priorities, use the forced-choice formula 'I can do X or Y this week—which matters more to you?' to surface tradeoffs rather than silently absorbing both demands.
Block Q2 tasks on the calendar with specific day+hour…
Schedule important-but-not-urgent tasks (Q2) on your calendar with specific day and hour blocks before touching urgent tasks, because scheduling converts intention into commitment while deferral guarantees displacement.
Break 'everything is priority 1' paralysis with pairwise…
When a category contains more than 7-9 items all claiming equal priority, force binary pairwise comparisons asking 'if I could only accomplish one in the next 90 days, which one?' to produce ordinal ranking.
Draw the line after item 3 — peak attention hours go above…
After producing a ranked priority list, draw a line after the third item and allocate your peak attention hours only to items above that line, treating everything below as receiving leftover capacity or explicit deferral.
Before email each morning, write your ONE thing
Each morning before opening email or responding to requests, ask 'What is the ONE thing I can do today such that by doing it everything else becomes easier or unnecessary?' and write the answer before starting work.
Nest the ONE thing question across horizons
Apply the ONE thing question at nested time horizons (daily, weekly, quarterly) and verify that answers align such that daily ONE things serve weekly ONE things which serve quarterly objectives.
Tasks inherit their parent objective's priority — trace…
For each task on your to-do list, trace it upward by asking 'Which of my ranked objectives does this directly advance?' and assign it the inherited priority of that objective, not its standalone urgency.
Work exclusively on the top-of-stack item until…
Maintain a priority stack of three to five items maximum, working exclusively on the top item until it completes or genuinely blocks, then rotating to the next unblocked item rather than distributing attention across the full list.
Priority overload triage
When your active priority count exceeds five, apply the triage question: if you could only advance two priorities this week, which two would create the most downstream relief or unlock the most progress?
Fix only the top 5 highest-return energy leaks at a time…
Do not attempt to resolve every identified energy leak simultaneously; instead, fix the top five highest-return leaks first based on the effort-to-cognitive-cost ratio, accepting that some leaks are structural and will take months.
Triage before processing
Perform information triage by spending no more than 3 minutes scanning the full landscape of waiting items before processing any single item, sorting into urgent-high-value, high-value-not-urgent, low-value, and discard categories.