Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 1287 answers
Setting deadlines for decisions prevents analysis paralysis.
Improving anything other than the bottleneck is wasted effort.
When an agent handles a recurring decision you preserve energy for novel decisions.
When one agent finishes and another starts the relevant context must transfer cleanly.
True control comes from building systems you trust to operate without your constant oversight.
Consistent 1% improvements produce transformative results over time.
Internal agents run in your mind while external agents are embedded in tools and systems.
Using specific emotional states as activation signals for pre-designed responses.
Sometimes deciding fast is more important than deciding optimally.
What you read shapes what you think which shapes what you seek out to read.
Consistent 1% improvements produce transformative results over time.
Documentation should evolve with the agent — outdated docs are worse than no docs.
Too many triggers overwhelm your attention — curate ruthlessly.
If you cannot measure an outcome you cannot build a feedback loop around it.
Effectiveness means your agent produces the intended outcome, not just that it runs.
An agent that fails to fire when it should leaves you exposed to undetected problems — the silence feels like safety, but it is blindness.
An agent that fails to fire when it should leaves you exposed to undetected problems — the silence feels like safety, but it is blindness.
Optimizing before you understand the system is the root of much wasted effort.
Errors teach you more about your systems than successes do.
Agent monitoring provides the data you need to optimize your cognitive systems.
Consistent 1% improvements produce transformative results over time.
Agents for how to respond in social situations like receiving criticism or giving feedback.
Sometimes combined agent behavior produces results none of the individual agents intended.
Sometimes combined agent behavior produces results none of the individual agents intended.