Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 194 answers
Identify two agents in your cognitive system that must hand off work to each other — for example, your research process handing off to your writing process, or your brainstorming agent handing off to your decision-making agent. Write down the current 'protocol' between them: what information does.
Identify a transition you make regularly — between deep work and meetings, between planning and execution, between research and writing, between your professional role and your personal life. For the next five days, insert a two-minute hand-off protocol at this transition point. Before you leave.
List every cognitive agent you currently operate — every recurring process, routine, habit, or subsystem that runs on a regular cycle. Aim for at least eight. Now, for each agent, answer two questions: (1) What does this agent need as input before it can run effectively? (2) What does this agent.
Identify a multi-step project you are currently working on — a content pipeline, a product launch, a home renovation, a course of study. Map the actual collaboration pattern in use. For each handoff between people or between your own cognitive agents, label it: is this a pipeline (sequential.
List every active cognitive agent you currently operate — every recurring commitment, routine, rule, habit, or automated behavior that runs with some regularity. For each one, rate three dimensions on a 1-to-5 scale: vigor (is it producing meaningful output?), organization (does it connect cleanly.
Identify one agent — a tool, habit, practice, or automated process — that you have been considering adding to your current system. Before adding it, write down: (1) every existing agent it will interact with, (2) the specific interaction channel for each (shared time, shared attention, shared.
Identify one cognitive agent — a habit, routine, process, or tool — that you have stopped using in the past year, or that you are considering retiring. Map its dependencies: list every other process, habit, or system that consumed its output, relied on its side effects, or assumed its existence..
Set a timer for thirty minutes. List every cognitive agent you currently operate — every recurring habit, routine, automated process, delegation, or structured practice. For each one, write down what it produces and what it consumes. Then draw the connections: which agent's output feeds into which.
Identify one domain where you perform with apparent ease — cooking a meal, running a meeting, writing a first draft, debugging code. Spend ten minutes decomposing that performance into its component agents: what sub-skills, heuristics, routines, and knowledge systems are active simultaneously?.
Make a list of every task you performed yesterday, from the moment you started working until you stopped. Next to each task, write one of three labels: ONLY ME (this genuinely requires my unique judgment or skill), COULD DELEGATE (someone or something else could do this at 80% or better quality),.
Choose one recurring task you currently handle personally — something you do at least weekly. It could be a work process, a household routine, or a personal maintenance task. Now design three delegation targets for it that are not people: (1) a checklist that captures every step so completely that.
List every recurring task you performed this week. For each task, score three dimensions on a 1-5 scale: (1) Irreversibility — how costly is it to fix a poor outcome? (2) Identity-centrality — does this task define who you are or develop a skill only you should develop? (3) Cognitive uniqueness —.
List three to five decisions you have delegated or automated in the past six months — to people, to systems, to habits, or to AI tools. For each one, apply the three-test filter: (1) Does this decision shape my identity or values? (2) Does this decision require context that only I possess? (3).
Identify one task you've recently delegated or plan to delegate — to a person, a tool, or an AI system. Write a specification for it using the five-part framework: (1) the desired outcome in concrete terms, (2) the constraints that must not be violated, (3) the success criteria you will use to.
Choose one task you currently delegate — to a person, a tool, or an AI agent. Write down how you currently specify that delegation. Separate your specification into two columns: outcome statements (what the result must achieve) and method statements (how to achieve it). Now rewrite the delegation.
Choose one delegation in your life — a tool, a habit, a person, a system — that you set up more than a month ago and have not checked since. Design a verification protocol for it using the three layers: a signal (one number or artifact you can check in under sixty seconds), a sample (a deeper.
Pick one system, tool, or person you've delegated a recurring task to. Define three things: (1) What does 'working correctly' look like in concrete, observable terms? (2) What is the cheapest verification check you could run — something that takes under 5 minutes? (3) At what frequency does that.
Select one cognitive task you perform repeatedly — scheduling, calculating, remembering appointments, spell-checking, looking up facts, formatting documents, tracking expenses. For one full day, perform this task entirely without your usual tool. Use your unaided mind. At the end of the day,.
Choose one behavior you currently perform inconsistently but want to make automatic — a daily review, a writing warm-up, a specific health behavior, a work shutdown ritual. Design it as a delegation specification using the Cue-Routine-Reward-Verification framework from this lesson. Write down: (1).
Choose one behavior you want to increase and one you want to decrease. For the behavior you want to increase, reduce the number of steps between you and the action to one or zero (place the guitar next to your desk, leave the journal open on the table, set the running shoes by the door). For the.
Identify one decision, process, or piece of context that you have explained verbally more than twice in the past month. Write a document that replaces those conversations. Keep it under two pages. Include: the situation or question the document answers, the key context someone needs to understand.
Identify three decisions you make repeatedly — daily or weekly — where you always arrive at roughly the same answer. Write each one as an explicit if/then rule: 'If X, then Y.' Post them where you'll see them. For one week, follow the rules without re-deliberating. At the end of the week,.
List five things you currently delegate — to people, tools, AI, or automated systems. For each, answer honestly: could you still do this well if the delegate disappeared tomorrow? If any answer is 'no' or 'I'm not sure,' you have found an over-delegation risk. Pick the most important one and.
List every recurring task you personally handled in the last two weeks. For each one, answer: (1) Could someone or something else do this at 70% of my quality? (2) What would break if I were unreachable for a week? (3) Have I ever tried to hand this off, or did I assume it couldn't be? Count the.