Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 199 answers
The next time you feel an urge to perform a behavior you are working to extinguish — whether it is snacking, phone-checking, nail-biting, or any other habit — set a timer for twenty minutes and practice the full surfing protocol. First, notice the urge arriving and say internally, "There is an.
Choose one extinction target you have been working on — a behavior you are actively eliminating. Create a three-tier celebration protocol. Tier one: a micro-celebration you can perform in under five seconds any time you notice the urge did not fire or you successfully surfed it (a fist pump, a.
Open a note or spreadsheet and create your post-extinction monitoring dashboard for one behavior you have been extinguishing during this phase. Build four columns: Date, Observation Window (the specific time or context you are monitoring), Signal Detected (yes or no, with brief description), and.
Conduct a Complete Behavioral Extinction Audit that integrates the tools from all nineteen preceding lessons. Set aside ninety minutes to two hours. This is the most comprehensive exercise in the phase and should produce a complete, actionable extinction plan for your primary target behavior. Step.
Identify one behavior change you have been considering but have not yet attempted, or one you have attempted and abandoned. Reframe it as a two-week experiment. Write down the following in your external system: (1) the specific behavior you will test, stated with enough precision that someone else.
Choose one behavior you have been considering changing — a new routine, a dietary shift, a productivity technique, anything you have been thinking about trying. Before you do anything else, write a hypothesis using this template: "If I [specific behavior], then [expected outcome], because.
Choose one behavior you believe affects your daily experience — a food, a sleep habit, a social practice, a work ritual. Write an operational definition of the outcome you expect it to influence, specifying what you will count, when you will count it, and what counts as one instance. Measure that.
Identify one behavior change you have been considering but have not started — a new morning routine, a different approach to meetings, a dietary shift, a creative practice. Now shrink it. Reduce the scope to the smallest version that would still give you information about whether the full version.
Choose one behavior you have been considering but have not started — something you have been putting off partly because the implied commitment feels too large. Define a specific time-box: 7 days if you want a quick signal, 14 days if you want to test habit formation, or 30 days if the behavior.
Look at your current life and identify one area where you recently changed multiple things at once — or where you are currently planning to. It could be a new morning routine, a dietary overhaul, a productivity system, a relationship strategy. Write down every variable you changed or intend to.
Choose a behavior change you have been considering, one you have either not started or have started and abandoned. Now strip it down to its behavioral kernel by asking three questions. First, what is the core action — the single irreducible physical or cognitive behavior at the heart of this.
Identify three things you have avoided attempting because of fear of failure. These might be professional projects, creative endeavors, relationship conversations, skill-development efforts, or lifestyle changes. For each one, write down the specific fear — what exactly you are afraid will happen.
Select one behavioral experiment you are currently running or have recently completed. If you have none, design one using the protocol from L-1103 and run it for a minimum of three days before completing this exercise. Create an experiment log entry using the six-field format described in this.
Go to your experiment log — the one you have been maintaining since L-1109. Find an experiment you have already run that did not produce the outcome you hoped for, or design and run a simple three-day experiment this week on a behavior change you suspect might not work. After the experiment.
Choose one behavioral practice you have adopted based on research or popular recommendation — something you are currently doing or have recently tried. It might be a morning routine element, an exercise protocol, a dietary practice, a productivity technique, or a stress management strategy. Write.
Review your experiment backlog or your list of behavioral experiments you have been considering. Select three experiments — one that feels clearly safe, one that feels somewhat uncertain, and one that feels ambitious or edgy. For each experiment, run it through the four-gate ethical screen. Gate.
Create your experiment backlog right now. Open a document, spreadsheet, or note — whatever format you will actually maintain. Title it "Experiment Backlog" and create five columns or fields: Hypothesis (one sentence stating what you predict), Domain (which life area this targets — work, health,.
Open your experiment backlog from L-1113 and identify your top three pending experiments. For each one, write down: the primary outcome variable it measures, the life domain it targets, and the time of day it primarily operates. Now assess independence. Do any two experiments share an outcome.
Design a routine pilot using this four-step protocol. First, define the routine as a behavioral chain (L-1041): list every action in sequence, with each action's completion serving as the trigger for the next. Second, write three to five success criteria that are specific enough to evaluate.
Create a seasonal experiment calendar. Take one behavior you currently practice (or want to practice) and design four seasonal variants — one per quarter. For each variant, specify: the behavior, the time of day, the environmental conditions you expect (daylight, temperature, schedule density),.
Recruit one partner — a friend, colleague, or family member — for a shared behavioral experiment. Choose a behavior change you both care about (sleep timing, daily movement, reading, screen reduction, or anything else). Define the experiment together: what you will both do, for how long, and what.
Identify one small behavioral experiment you have run in the past six months that produced a clear positive result. Write down the exact conditions under which it succeeded: duration, scope, context, triggers, and any constraints that made it manageable. Now design three progressive expansions —.
Gather every experiment record you have created during this phase — whether in a journal, spreadsheet, notes app, or scattered across documents. If you have fewer than five entries, include informal experiments you remember running even if you did not record them formally. Set aside sixty to.
Conduct a Behavioral Experimentation System Audit — a comprehensive review that integrates all nineteen preceding lessons into a single diagnostic and design session. Set aside ninety minutes to two hours. Part 1 — Mindset Assessment (L-1101, L-1108): Write three paragraphs describing your current.