Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 191 answers
Pick one cognitive agent you have running — a reminder, a habit trigger, a journaling prompt, an automated check-in. Over the next seven days, track every time it fires. For each activation, mark it as either 'true positive' (it fired and you genuinely needed the intervention) or 'false positive'.
Select a recurring task that consistently leaves you drained — a weekly meeting you run, a type of document you produce, a household routine, a social obligation. Map its energy profile by answering four questions: (1) What are the distinct cognitive operations this task requires (retrieval,.
Identify one system in your life that has collapsed completely at least once in the past year — a habit, a routine, a process. Write down the full version of that system. Now design two degraded modes: a 'reduced' version that takes half the time and covers the most critical elements, and a.
Pick one agent — a habit trigger, a review routine, a decision rule — that you trust to catch problems. Look back at the last 30 days. Identify at least two situations where that agent should have fired but didn't. Write them down. For each miss, note: what was the situation, what should the agent.
Identify three agents (habits, routines, tools, or practices) in your current life that operate independently but share a context — your morning, your work process, your creative practice. For each, write down its individual rule: what it does and when. Then observe: what behavior has emerged from.
Pick one behavior you've been trying to start. Write down the trigger you've been using. Then score it on two dimensions: specificity (could someone else observe the exact moment it occurs?) and observability (do you reliably notice it when it happens?). If either score is low, redesign the.
Pick one behavior you want to activate more reliably. Write the single trigger you currently use (or would use). Now add a second qualifying condition using AND. Then add a third. Test the compound trigger for three days and track: How many times did it fire? How many of those were genuine.
Choose one recurring output in your life — a report you write, a meeting you run, a decision you make weekly, a conversation type you repeat. For the next three instances of that output, add a 5-minute detection pass immediately after completion. Do not try to fix anything yet. Instead, write down.
For one full workday, log every behavior change you notice — every time you switch tasks, open an app, stand up, reach for food, or check your phone. Next to each entry, write I (internal) or E (external). Internal: the impulse came from a feeling, thought, or physical sensation with no outside.
Identify your single most contested resource — the time block, tool, or capacity that multiple goals, habits, or commitments compete for most frequently. List every agent (goal, commitment, project) that claims access to that resource. For each claimant, write down: (1) how often it needs the.
Identify one area of your life or work where you experience recurring oscillation — energy levels, spending, task completion rates, or emotional states. Map the balancing loop: what is the set point (target), what is the sensor (how you detect deviation), and what is the corrective action? Write.
Pick one system in your life that you have spent time optimizing — a workflow, a tool, a routine. Write down: (1) What exactly did you optimize? (2) What evidence did you have that this was the bottleneck? (3) What would have happened if you had done nothing? If your honest answer to #2 is 'I.
Pick one system you operate — a creative practice, a fitness routine, a team process, a communication habit. Define three things: (1) the ideal behavior, (2) the minimum acceptable behavior, and (3) how many deviations from ideal you will tolerate per month before triggering a review. Write these.
Pick three tasks you delegated in the past week. For each one, write down: (1) what level of autonomy you intended, (2) what level the delegate actually operated at, and (3) whether the gap caused any friction. Use Appelo's seven levels as your scale: Tell, Sell, Consult, Agree, Advise, Inquire,.
Identify one area in your life where you feel stuck — where two commitments, habits, or goals seem to block each other. Write down the two agents involved and the resource each is waiting for. Then ask: which agent can release its prerequisite first? Which dependency is actually optional, assumed,.
Identify one task you currently do that someone else could do at 70% quality. Delegate it this week with clear specifications (what 'done' looks like, the deadline, and one constraint). When the result comes back imperfect, write down: (1) what specifically fell short, (2) whether the shortfall.
Pick one cognitive agent you already run — a decision-making heuristic, a weekly review, a conflict-resolution protocol, anything that fires in response to a trigger and is supposed to produce a specific result. Define its intended outcome in one sentence. Then review the last five times it fired.
Identify one recurring task you perform at least weekly — sending a report, publishing content, deploying code, running a meeting, submitting an invoice. Write a pre-flight checklist of 5-7 conditions that must be true before you execute. These are not steps in the task itself; they are conditions.
Choose one recurring problem you have encountered at least three times in the past month — a meeting that always derails, a task you consistently procrastinate on, a tool that keeps breaking. Write the problem as a single factual sentence. Then ask 'Why does this happen?' and write the answer. Ask.
Pick one active goal or recurring commitment — a fitness routine, a creative practice, a work deliverable cadence. Write down the current expectation you hold for it. Now rewrite that expectation with an explicit error budget: how many misses, delays, or quality drops per month or quarter are.
List the 3-5 cognitive agents (habits, routines, mental processes) you run most frequently in a single context — your morning, your workday start, your creative sessions. Write them down. Now ask: who decides the order? If the answer is 'habit' or 'whatever I feel like,' you have no orchestrator..
Identify a decision you're currently sitting on. Write down: (1) your current confidence level as a percentage, (2) what additional information you'd need to reach 90% confidence, (3) how long that information would take to gather, and (4) the cost of delay — what value you lose for each day the.
Pick one important recurring process in your life — a work deliverable, a creative routine, a financial procedure, anything where failure would cost you real time or real money. Write down the three most likely ways it could fail. For each failure mode, write a recovery procedure: the specific.
Identify one error you have made at least three times in the past six months — a repeated mistake, a recurring frustration, a pattern of falling short. Write down each instance with enough detail to compare them. Then ask, for each instance: What conditions were present every time? What structural.