Frequently asked questions about thinking, epistemology, and cognitive tools. 1703 answers
Your phone home screen app arrangement and notifications architecture your digital choices.
Screenshot your phone's home screen right now. For each app visible without scrolling, write down: (1) how many times you opened it yesterday, (2) whether each opening was intentional or reflexive, and (3) whether the app serves a goal you've explicitly chosen. Move every app that fails test 3 off.
Performing a dramatic 'digital detox' that lasts three days before reverting completely. The failure is treating this as willpower rather than architecture. You don't need to resist your phone — you need to redesign it so that the default path leads where you actually want to go. One-time purges.
Your phone home screen app arrangement and notifications architecture your digital choices.
Design your physical workspace to support the type of thinking you need to do.
Design your physical workspace to support the type of thinking you need to do.
Design your physical workspace to support the type of thinking you need to do.
Design your physical workspace to support the type of thinking you need to do.
Conduct a sensory audit of your primary workspace. Sit in your normal working position and, for each sensory channel, write down every stimulus present: Visual (what is in your direct sightline, peripheral vision, and behind you), Auditory (constant sounds, intermittent sounds, sound quality),.
Optimizing your workspace for aesthetics or status rather than cognitive function. The Instagram-worthy desk setup with the designer monitor stand, the plant wall, and the artisan candle might look like a focus environment — but if the candle's scent triggers associative thinking when you need.
Design your physical workspace to support the type of thinking you need to do.
Map all the choices you make in a typical day and identify which could be automated or eliminated.
Map all the choices you make in a typical day and identify which could be automated or eliminated.
Map all the choices you make in a typical day and identify which could be automated or eliminated.
Map all the choices you make in a typical day and identify which could be automated or eliminated.
Map all the choices you make in a typical day and identify which could be automated or eliminated.
Map all the choices you make in a typical day and identify which could be automated or eliminated.
Run a full-day choice audit tomorrow. From the moment you wake up, carry a small notebook or open a notes app and log every decision you make. Not just the ones that feel like decisions — also the micro-choices you barely notice. What to look at first, what to skip, what to eat, what to wear, when.
Treating the choice audit as a one-time curiosity exercise rather than a diagnostic tool that produces actionable changes. You spend a day tracking decisions, find the results interesting, show the list to a friend, and then change nothing. The audit is not the destination — it is the map. A map.
Map all the choices you make in a typical day and identify which could be automated or eliminated.
Design choice environments that nudge your future self toward good decisions without removing freedom.
Design choice environments that nudge your future self toward good decisions without removing freedom.
Design choice environments that nudge your future self toward good decisions without removing freedom.
Design choice environments that nudge your future self toward good decisions without removing freedom.