Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 209 answers
What you reach for when bored reveals and reinforces your default patterns.
Compulsive phone-checking is a default behavior that can be replaced.
Replace an unproductive default with a specific productive alternative.
What your environment makes easiest to do becomes your behavioral default.
How you communicate when not thinking carefully about it is your communication default.
Your automatic emotional reaction to events is a default that can be redesigned.
Whether you default to optimism pessimism or realism shapes your interpretation of everything.
Whether you default to quick intuitive decisions or slow analytical ones matters.
Periodically upgrade your defaults to higher-quality automatic behaviors.
Your defaults should reflect the person you are working to become.
Notice when you are operating on default rather than intention.
The ability to notice a default activating and choose differently is a key skill.
When your automatic behaviors are all well-designed your baseline quality of life is high.
Behavioral extinction is the deliberate process of removing automated behaviors.
A behavior persists because it is rewarded — find and remove the reward.
When you stop rewarding a behavior it temporarily intensifies before declining — expect this.
Suppression pushes behavior underground while extinction removes its cause.
Every behavior serves a purpose — understand what need it meets before trying to eliminate it.
Provide an alternative way to meet the underlying need.
Remove cues and triggers for unwanted behaviors from your environment.
Others may unknowingly reinforce behaviors you are trying to eliminate.
Behavioral extinction takes time — weeks or months depending on how established the behavior is.
Occasional returns of the old behavior are normal and do not mean failure.
Have a plan for what to do when old behaviors resurface.