Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 1668 answers
Review the last 3-5 patterns you've identified in your own behavior (from a journal, tracker, or memory). For each, write down: (1) when did this pattern first form, (2) what conditions strengthen it, (3) what conditions weaken it, (4) has it changed over time. Now look across all of them. Do your.
Open your calendar, journal, or email archive. Pick one recurring behavior — energy level, spending, exercise frequency, creative output, conflict with a partner. Chart it by week or month for the last 12 months. Look for peaks, troughs, and phase relationships (does one cycle lead another by 2-3.
For five consecutive workdays, rate your mental energy at four fixed times: 9 AM, 12 PM, 3 PM, and 7 PM. Use a simple 1-5 scale (1 = foggy/depleted, 5 = sharp/focused). At each checkpoint, also note what you're doing, what you ate last, and how much sleep you got the night before. At the end of.
Pick a task you've been avoiding for more than 48 hours. Don't do it yet. Instead, write down: (1) what you feel when you think about starting it, (2) what you did instead the last time you avoided it, (3) what story you told yourself to justify the delay. Now look at the last three instances of.
Pick three genuine successes from the past two years — shipped a project, nailed a presentation, maintained a habit for months, solved a hard problem. For each one, answer: (1) What conditions were present? (2) What did I do differently from my usual approach? (3) Who was involved? (4) What was my.
Identify one automatic behavioral pattern you want to change. Map its chain: trigger -> response -> consequence. Tomorrow, when the trigger fires, execute a pre-planned competing response instead. It doesn't need to be perfect — it just needs to be different. Write down what happened. The goal.
Pull up a collection of notes you've written over the past 30-90 days — a journal, a work log, a notes app, anything with at least 20 entries. Set a timer for 25 minutes. Read through every entry without editing. On a separate page, write down any recurring themes, repeated phrases, or topics that.
Pick one small pattern you currently repeat daily — a morning habit, a work ritual, a way you respond to stress. Project it forward: what does doing this thing 365 more times produce? Write down the 1-year and 5-year compound trajectory. Then pick one small pattern you'd like to install. What does.
This is the Phase 6 integration exercise. Over the next seven days, complete one practice each day using a different skill from this phase: Day 1 — Identify a pattern operating at three scales (L-0101). Day 2 — Log three recurrences and test one for the three-occurrence threshold (L-0102, L-0109)..
Run an information audit on a single day. From the moment you open your first screen to the moment you close your last, log every information input you encounter: emails, messages, articles, notifications, meetings, social media posts, news headlines. At the end of the day, go through the list and.
Write down the single most important outcome you are trying to produce this week in one sentence. Now open your email, Slack, or RSS feed and scroll through the last 20 items. For each one, mark it S (signal — directly relevant to your stated outcome) or N (noise — not relevant). Count the ratio..
For one full workday, keep an urgency log. Every time something demands your immediate attention — a notification, a request, an internal impulse to check something — write it down with a timestamp. At the end of the day, score each item: (1) Was it actually time-sensitive? (2) What would have.
Audit your information inputs for one full day. Every time you consume content — a news article, a social media scroll session, a podcast, a Slack thread, a newsletter — log the source and an honest estimate of the time spent. At the end of the day, sort the list into three columns: (1) sources.
Conduct an information cost audit. List every source you check daily or weekly: news sites, newsletters, social feeds, Slack channels, podcasts, group chats. For each, estimate the minutes per day you spend on it. Then answer three questions: (1) What decision have I made better in the last 30.
Run a 48-hour social media audit. For two days, every time you open a social media app, immediately write down what you intended to find. Set a five-minute timer. When the timer fires, stop and record: (1) Did you find what you intended? (2) What did you actually consume instead? (3) How do you.
For the next 48 hours, run an emotional audit on your information intake. Every time you consume a piece of information — a news headline, a Slack message, a social media post, an email — and feel a strong emotional reaction (anger, anxiety, excitement, outrage), stop and write down three things:.
Identify one decision you are currently making or have recently made based on second-hand information — a report, a summary, a metric dashboard, or someone else's interpretation of events. Write down what you know. Then identify the first-party source: the raw data, the original conversation, the.
Pick one topic you believe you understand well — something you have read about multiple times but never had to explain from scratch. Set a five-minute timer. Write a from-memory explanation of the topic as if teaching it to a smart twelve-year-old. No notes, no searches, no references. When the.
Choose one 24-hour period this week for an information fast. No social media, no news, no newsletters, no podcasts, no articles. You can still communicate with people directly (calls, texts, in-person conversation) — the fast targets passive consumption, not human connection. Before you begin,.
Open whatever you read yesterday — your inbox, your feed, your bookmarks. Sort every piece of content you consumed into one of three buckets: (1) irrelevant within a week, (2) useful for months, (3) useful for years or longer. Count how many items land in each bucket. If bucket one is the largest,.
Pick a domain you've been learning for at least six months. Draw two columns: Signal (concepts that connected to other things you knew and changed how you think or act) and Noise (content you consumed that you can't recall or that never connected to anything). Count the items in each column. Now.
Pick one information stream you currently manage by filtering (email, news, social feed, Slack). Instead of adding more filters or mute rules, define three specific signals you need from that stream — the patterns that actually matter to your work. Write them down. For one week, scan only for.
Conduct a full information source audit right now. Open a document and list every recurring information source in your life: newsletters, RSS feeds, podcasts, YouTube subscriptions, Slack communities, Discord servers, social media follows, news apps, group chats, subreddits, push notification.
Conduct a full Phase 7 integration audit. Choose one high-stakes domain in your life — your primary work project, a critical relationship, a major decision you are facing. Over the next seven days, apply each of the twenty Phase 7 skills to that domain, one per day on weekdays and catching up on.