Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 1675 answers
Other people can serve as triggers — asking someone to remind you is a social trigger.
Too many triggers overwhelm your attention — curate ruthlessly.
Too many triggers overwhelm your attention — curate ruthlessly.
Open your phone's notification settings right now. Count the total number of apps with notifications enabled. Then count how many you actually acted on in the last 48 hours — not glanced at, acted on. Calculate your personal signal-to-noise ratio. If fewer than 20% of your notification sources.
Adding one more trigger because this one feels important — while ignoring that the last five also felt important when you added them. The failure is never a single trigger; it's the cumulative weight of triggers that each seemed reasonable in isolation. You'll know you've hit fatigue when you feel.
Too many triggers overwhelm your attention — curate ruthlessly.
Regularly review your triggers to ensure they are still relevant and well-calibrated.
Regularly review your triggers to ensure they are still relevant and well-calibrated.
Regularly review your triggers to ensure they are still relevant and well-calibrated.
Regularly review your triggers to ensure they are still relevant and well-calibrated.
List every trigger you currently rely on — alarms, environmental cues, habit stacks, calendar prompts, digital notifications. For each one, answer three questions: (1) How many times did it fire in the last two weeks? (2) When it fired, did I actually execute the intended behavior? (3) Is the.
Building an elaborate trigger system and then never reviewing it. Your triggers quietly degrade as your environment, schedule, and priorities shift. You blame yourself for 'losing discipline' when the real problem is unmaintained infrastructure. The system didn't fail — you stopped maintaining it.
Regularly review your triggers to ensure they are still relevant and well-calibrated.
You are designing the user experience of your own cognitive systems.
You are designing the user experience of your own cognitive systems.
You are designing the user experience of your own cognitive systems.
You are designing the user experience of your own cognitive systems.
You are designing the user experience of your own cognitive systems.
You are designing the user experience of your own cognitive systems.
You are designing the user experience of your own cognitive systems.
You are designing the user experience of your own cognitive systems.
Choose one trigger you currently rely on — a habit cue, a reminder, or an environmental prompt. Conduct a UX audit of this trigger using Norman's seven fundamental principles. (1) Discoverability: Can you reliably notice this trigger when it occurs, or does it blend into the background? (2).
Designing triggers that are legible only to your aspirational self — the version of you that is alert, motivated, and paying attention — rather than your actual self, the one who is tired, distracted, and operating on autopilot. This is the equivalent of designing a beautiful interface that only.
You are designing the user experience of your own cognitive systems.