Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 1647 answers
Start with broad triggers and narrow them as you learn what works.
Pick one trigger you currently use (or want to use) for a behavior you're building. Write it down exactly as it stands. Now run it for three days, logging every time it fires and whether the activation felt useful or wasted. At the end of three days, rewrite the trigger to be more specific based.
Spending weeks designing the 'perfect' trigger before ever testing it. You research the ideal conditions, the optimal phrasing, the best environmental setup — and you never actually deploy anything. Or the opposite: you set a broad trigger on day one and never revisit it, accepting a 30%.
Start with broad triggers and narrow them as you learn what works.
A complete set of well-tuned triggers means you respond appropriately to everything that matters.
A complete set of well-tuned triggers means you respond appropriately to everything that matters.
A complete set of well-tuned triggers means you respond appropriately to everything that matters.
Conduct a trigger coverage audit for one domain of your life (work, health, relationships, finances). List every important recurring situation in that domain — every condition that, if you failed to respond appropriately, would produce meaningful negative consequences. For each situation, answer:.
Believing that mastery means having triggers for everything — including things that do not matter. Comprehensive does not mean exhaustive. A system with triggers for every possible condition is not masterful; it is overloaded. Trigger fatigue (L-0436) will destroy it. Mastery is coverage of what.
A complete set of well-tuned triggers means you respond appropriately to everything that matters.
Every decision costs attention and energy — systematic frameworks reduce this cost.
Every decision costs attention and energy — systematic frameworks reduce this cost.
Every decision costs attention and energy — systematic frameworks reduce this cost.
Most decisions you face are variations of types you have encountered before.
Most decisions you face are variations of types you have encountered before.
Most decisions you face are variations of types you have encountered before.
Most decisions you face are variations of types you have encountered before.
Most decisions you face are variations of types you have encountered before.
Over the next five days, keep a decision log. Every time you face a decision — large or small — write down what it is, then classify it by type. Do not invent categories in advance. Let them emerge from the data. By the end of five days, count how many distinct types you have logged and how many.
Treating every decision as unique. When you fail to recognize recurring types, you approach each decision from scratch — re-gathering information, re-weighing criteria, re-deliberating tradeoffs that you have already resolved in structurally identical situations. This is not thoroughness. It is.
Most decisions you face are variations of types you have encountered before.
Create a specific framework for each recurring decision type.
Create a specific framework for each recurring decision type.
Create a specific framework for each recurring decision type.