Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 9738 answers
Linking an agent to a specific event like arriving at work or opening your laptop.
Linking an agent to a specific event like arriving at work or opening your laptop.
Linking an agent to a specific event like arriving at work or opening your laptop.
Too sensitive and the agent fires too often — too insensitive and it never fires.
Combining multiple trigger conditions for higher-specificity activation.
Position trigger cues where you will encounter them at the right moment.
Alarms, notifications, and calendar events as systematic trigger mechanisms.
Regularly review your triggers to ensure they are still relevant and well-calibrated.
Most decisions you face are variations of types you have encountered before.
Most decisions you face are variations of types you have encountered before.
Most decisions you face are variations of types you have encountered before.
Weight your criteria and score options systematically when multiple factors matter.
Spend minimal time on easily reversible decisions and maximum time on irreversible ones.
Audit the last ten decisions you spent significant time on. For each one, classify it: Was the decision reversible (you could undo it within days or weeks at low cost), partially reversible (you could undo it but with meaningful cost or friction), or irreversible (once done, the path back is.
Treating every decision as irreversible. You research restaurant choices for an hour. You agonize over which color to paint the guest bedroom. You build a spreadsheet comparing five nearly identical software subscriptions. Meanwhile, the actually irreversible decisions — career changes, long-term.
Spend minimal time on easily reversible decisions and maximum time on irreversible ones.
One-way doors deserve careful analysis — two-way doors should be walked through quickly.
For most decisions good enough is better than perfect because the search cost exceeds the improvement.
The faster you get feedback on an action the faster you can adjust.
Self-correcting loops maintain balance by countering deviations.
Self-correcting loops maintain balance by countering deviations.
Real situations often involve several interacting feedback loops simultaneously.
Resistance to certain feedback signals it touches an important blind spot.
No process works perfectly every time — error correction must be built in from the start.