Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 1490 answers
Surprise indicates a gap between your model and reality — always worth noting.
For the next 48 hours, carry a capture tool and tag every surprise with the prefix 'S:' — even tiny ones. 'S: The coffee shop I assumed closed on Mondays was open.' 'S: That API call returned in 20ms when I expected 200ms.' 'S: My partner remembered a detail from a conversation I forgot we had.'.
Filtering for 'important' surprises and ignoring small ones. The small surprises — the colleague who disagrees when you expected agreement, the metric that ticks up when you predicted flat — are precisely the ones that reveal systematic blind spots. Big surprises are obvious enough that everyone.
Surprise indicates a gap between your model and reality — always worth noting.
Record not just what you decided but why — because your future self will rewrite the reasoning after the fact, and you will never notice it happening.
Record not just what you decided but why — because your future self will rewrite the reasoning after the fact, and you will never notice it happening.
Record not just what you decided but why — because your future self will rewrite the reasoning after the fact, and you will never notice it happening.
Place capture tools where you will see and use them without having to remember. The best capture system is one your environment triggers automatically — not one that depends on willpower or recall.
Place capture tools where you will see and use them without having to remember. The best capture system is one your environment triggers automatically — not one that depends on willpower or recall.
Place capture tools where you will see and use them without having to remember. The best capture system is one your environment triggers automatically — not one that depends on willpower or recall.
When you trust your capture system your mind stops trying to hold everything.
You wake each day with a limited reservoir of focused attention — roughly three to four hours of genuine deep work — that depletes with every act of sustained concentration and cannot be refilled by willpower alone.
Every moment you spend attending to one thing is a moment you cannot spend attending to anything else. Where you direct attention is the most consequential decision you make, and you are making it constantly — whether you realize it or not.
Every moment you spend attending to one thing is a moment you cannot spend attending to anything else. Where you direct attention is the most consequential decision you make, and you are making it constantly — whether you realize it or not.
Every moment you spend attending to one thing is a moment you cannot spend attending to anything else. Where you direct attention is the most consequential decision you make, and you are making it constantly — whether you realize it or not.
Doing one thing at a time produces better results faster than switching between tasks.
Doing one thing at a time produces better results faster than switching between tasks.
Doing one thing at a time produces better results faster than switching between tasks.
Every time you switch tasks, you pay a recovery tax — between 10 and 25 minutes of degraded cognition while your brain reloads the previous context. This cost is invisible because you feel busy the entire time.
Every time you switch tasks, you pay a recovery tax — between 10 and 25 minutes of degraded cognition while your brain reloads the previous context. This cost is invisible because you feel busy the entire time.
Identify when you are sharpest and guard those hours for your most demanding work.
Identify when you are sharpest and guard those hours for your most demanding work.
Your attention goes where your intention already pointed it. Decide what to focus on before you start, and your perceptual system reorganizes around that decision — filtering, prioritizing, and surfacing what matters while suppressing what does not.
Your attention goes where your intention already pointed it. Decide what to focus on before you start, and your perceptual system reorganizes around that decision — filtering, prioritizing, and surfacing what matters while suppressing what does not.