Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 194 answers
Write down the three commitments you have kept most consistently over the past year — the ones you rarely skip, the ones that feel non-negotiable. Now complete this sentence for each: 'I keep this commitment because I am the kind of person who ___.' Notice how naturally the identity statement.
Choose a goal you have been stalling on — one that feels too large to start or too complex to sustain. Write it down in its current form. Now decompose it into the smallest daily action that would constitute genuine progress. The micro-commitment must pass three tests: (1) it takes less than.
Choose one commitment that matters deeply to you but that you struggle to execute consistently. Design a commitment ritual for it using four elements: (1) a trigger — a specific time, event, or environmental cue that initiates the ritual; (2) a preparation sequence — two to four physical actions.
Identify one commitment you have broken or abandoned in the last six months. Write a brief failure analysis using four questions: (1) What specifically broke — the behavior, the conditions, or the commitment design itself? (2) What was the triggering event that caused the first lapse? (3) What was.
Build and execute your first commitment review right now. Step one: create a single document listing every active commitment you are currently holding — professional, personal, creative, health, relational, financial, domestic. Include commitments you are keeping and commitments you are failing.
Create a two-column document. In the left column, list your five to seven deepest values — not goals, not aspirations, but the qualities and directions that matter to you regardless of outcome. Use Schwartz's value domains as prompts if needed: self-direction, stimulation, hedonism, achievement,.
Map your complete commitment architecture. For each active commitment, fill in this diagnostic: (1) What commitment device supports it? (L-0663) (2) What implementation intention triggers it? (L-0666) (3) What is it stacked onto? (L-0667) (4) Is the scope defined with all five dimensions? (L-0668).
Track your next full workday in two columns. In the left column, log every task you work on and when you started it. In the right column, note what triggered you to start: was it a notification, an email, a request from someone, an internal feeling of anxiety, or a deliberate decision based on.
Open your task list, calendar, or inbox. Pick the ten most recent items you acted on. For each one, answer two questions independently: (1) Did this have a real deadline or time constraint? (2) Does this directly advance a goal I care about in six months? Mark each item U for urgent, I for.
List every task, commitment, and open loop you are carrying right now — aim for at least fifteen items. Draw a 2x2 grid. Label the axes Urgent/Not Urgent and Important/Not Important. Place each item in a quadrant. Then count: how many items landed in Q2 (important but not urgent)? How many hours.
Write down every commitment, project, or goal you are currently treating as a priority. Do not filter — capture everything that occupies your attention and energy. Now force-rank the entire list from most important to least important. No ties. No categories. No 'these are all equally important.'.
Identify your current top five priorities — the ones you ranked in L-0684. Now apply the focusing question to that list: 'What is the ONE thing I can do today such that by doing it everything else becomes easier or unnecessary?' Write down the answer. Then ask the question again for this week. And.
Pick five tasks currently on your to-do list — ideally a mix of things that feel urgent and things that feel neglected. For each task, answer one question: 'Which of my top-ranked goals (from L-0684) does this task directly advance?' Draw an arrow from each task to the goal it serves. If a task.
Pull up your current priority list — whether it is a formal document, a mental model, or the three things you wrote down after L-0685. For each priority, answer two questions. First: 'What would have to change in my world for this to no longer be the right priority?' Write down the specific.
Build your first priority stack right now. Take your ranked list from L-0684 and select the top three to five items — no more than five. Write each one on a separate card, sticky note, or line in a dedicated document. Physically or visually stack them in rank order. The top item is the only item.
Identify three requests, invitations, or opportunities you said yes to in the past month that you now recognize were not aligned with your top three priorities. For each one, write the specific sentence you would have used to say no — not a vague 'I am busy' but a precise statement that names what.
Identify one situation this week where someone else's priority conflicted with yours and you silently deferred — you took on the task, adjusted your schedule, or abandoned your plan without saying anything. Write down: (1) what you were working on, (2) what they asked for, (3) what you actually.
Identify three important-but-not-urgent priorities you have been consistently deferring for at least four weeks. For each one, answer three questions: (1) What was the original cost of addressing this when you first noticed it? Estimate in hours and emotional difficulty on a 1-10 scale. (2) What.
Run your first weekly priority reset right now. Step one: take a blank document or sheet of paper — not your existing task list — and write down the three things that would matter most this week if you had no prior commitments and were choosing from scratch. Step two: compare these three items.
Identify your top three priorities for this week. Write each one in a single sentence. Now identify three people whose requests are most likely to conflict with those priorities — your manager, a teammate, a partner, a client. Send each person a brief message this week that names your current top.
Conduct a priority-time audit over the next seven days. Each evening, log how you spent your waking hours in thirty-minute blocks. At the end of the week, categorize every block into the domain it served — professional, health, relationships, creative, learning, domestic, recovery, or.
Audit your last five working days. For each day, list the three activities that consumed the most time. Tag each one with its trap mechanism: perfectionism (spent longer than the priority justified), people-pleasing (said yes to someone else's priority), novelty-seeking (pursued something new and.
Right now, list every active priority you are holding — professional and personal. Count them. If the number is greater than five, you are in simplification territory. Now apply the triage question: if you could only advance two priorities this week, which two would create the most relief, unlock.
Identify your three highest-ranked priorities from L-0684. For each one, estimate the percentage of your productive hours last month that directly advanced it — not adjacent work, not preparatory work, but actions whose output moved the priority measurably forward. Now identify the three.