Concepts
The irreducible epistemic atoms underlying the curriculum. 4,828 atoms across 8 types
Use causal and insight language when processing difficult…
Write with causal language (because, therefore, leads to) and insight language (realize, understand, recognize) when processing difficult experiences, because this linguistic structure forces transformation from raw venting to structured sense-making that produces measurable health benefits.
Do mental inventories in different contexts — what…
Conduct separate mental inventory sessions in different physical and emotional contexts (office vs. home, morning vs. evening, calm vs. stressed), then compare outputs to reveal context-dependent retrieval gaps, because state-dependent memory causes approximately 50% retrieval variance based on context matching.
Dump thoughts for 3 minutes then tag each as Signal…
Conduct a 3-minute thought dump without filtering, then immediately tag each thought as S (signal: novel, surprising, actionable, connective) or N (narration: repetitive, self-referential, habitual, defensive) to establish your baseline signal-to-noise ratio.
The flinch away from writing a thought down IS the signal…
When a thought triggers resistance to capture (a 'flinch' away from writing it down), use that resistance feeling as the capture trigger rather than a reason to skip—thoughts that produce hesitation are the highest-value capture targets.
Ask four diagnostic questions during weekly review…
During weekly reviews, ask four metacognitive questions—what did I capture well, what did I almost lose, where did I over-capture noise, and what am I avoiding—to monitor system health rather than just processing lists.
Random skipped captures = friction problem; clustered…
Classify each skipped capture by checking whether failure frequency is random across topics (friction problem requiring tool improvement) or clustered in specific domains (resistance problem revealing avoidance patterns).
Ask 'What would become true if I wrote this down?'…
For each thought you resist capturing, immediately ask and write down 'What would become true if I had written this down?'—usually revealing that externalization would trigger a downstream commitment chain you're avoiding.
Capture emotions now, interpret them later in review…
Defer emotional interpretation to review sessions when multiple entries enable pattern recognition, rather than explaining emotions during initial capture.
For each surprise, write
For each captured surprise, write one sentence answering 'What did I apparently believe that turned out to be wrong?' to convert observations into explicit model gaps.
Capture small mundane surprises — they reveal systematic…
Capture small, mundane surprises rather than filtering for 'important' ones, because small surprises reveal systematic blind spots that large surprises obscure.
Measure your biological prime time with hourly ratings…
When measuring your biological prime time, set hourly check-ins for at least 10 workdays and rate mental clarity, motivation, and physical energy on a 1-5 scale to identify your peak 2-3 hour window.
Stop and take a real break when output quality degrades…
When cognitive output quality begins degrading (increased rewrites, slowed pace, rising error rate), stop work and take a 10-15 minute break with genuine disengagement even if the task is incomplete, because work produced during depletion has lower quality than work produced after restoration despite shorter total time.
If shallow work exceeds 50%, the problem is structural…
Track your shallow-to-deep work ratio weekly and treat ratios exceeding 50% shallow as signals of structural calendar problems requiring role negotiation rather than personal discipline improvement.
Track decision quality, comprehension, and emotional…
Rate your decision quality, comprehension speed, and emotional regulation daily on a 1-5 scale across five consecutive workdays to detect attention debt accumulation before subjective awareness registers the degradation.
Use both automated and manual time tracking — neither…
Use automated time-tracking tools alongside manual 30-minute increment logs simultaneously for three consecutive workdays to capture both digital activity and non-digital context that neither method alone reveals.
Predict your time allocation before reviewing tracking…
Before reviewing any attention tracking data, write explicit predictions about your time allocation percentages across categories, then calculate prediction-reality gaps to identify your largest attention blind spots.
On depleted days (capacity 1-2), cap deep work at 1 hour…
When daily capacity rating is 1-2 (depleted/foggy), limit focused work to 1 hour maximum and allocate remaining time to administrative tasks, recovery, or maintenance rather than forcing deep work.
Rate capacity 1-5 in your first 30 minutes — then select…
Rate your daily capacity on a 1-5 scale within the first 30 minutes of your workday before starting any tasks, using the rating to select which tier of work plan to execute that day.
Normal daily capacity variation is not a problem — only…
Treat common-cause capacity variation (daily fluctuations within your normal 2-5 hour range) as system-inherent rather than problems requiring intervention; investigate and respond only to special-cause variation (events falling outside normal range).
Your capacity ceiling is where strong output stops…
During capacity measurement, rate output quality at the end of each work block (strong/acceptable/weak) and identify the cumulative hour mark where strong output stops as your effective capacity ceiling for planning purposes.
When you see repetition, forced output, or errors — switch…
When a cognitive pool (creative, analytical, social) shows degradation markers—repetition, forced output, errors, disengagement—switch to a different pool type rather than pushing through, even if scheduled time remains.
Measure honest current output over 3 representative days…
When building capacity from a new baseline, measure current honest output over at least three representative days—not best days or aspirational targets—to establish accurate starting point.
Test 'busywork' by asking what breaks if you stop…
For every operational task you currently frame as 'busywork,' write one sentence describing what would break if you stopped doing it for a month—if nothing breaks, eliminate it; if something breaks, relabel it as infrastructure.
Draft the reactive version first, then wait 10 minutes…
In emotionally charged messages, draft your reactive response first in a private document, then wait 10 minutes before composing the actual message, using the comparison between versions as data about emotional distortion.