Mental Model
Scenius (Communal Genius)
Scenius is Eno's term for the collective cultural context that can contribute to creative work
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Mental Model
Scheduling Theory (Earliest Due Date, Weighted Shortest Job First)
The mathematical study of optimal task sequencing under different objectives
Mental Model
Schelling Point (Focal Point in Coordination)
An option selected because participants expect it to stand out to one another in coordination or bargaining.
Mental Model
Schelling's Segregation Model
Schelling's segregation models demonstrate that local preferences and relocation interactions can produce substantial aggregate separation without agents explicitly requesting the final pattern
Cognitive Move
Schema
Write down the exact fields that go in and the exact fields that must come back, so neither side has to guess what a good update looks like.
Cognitive Move
schematic transit map
Distance and direction are surrendered on purpose. Lines are straightened to a few angles, spacing is made even, and only connection and order survive. It is the clearest available answer to what joins what and where you have to change. It is a bad answer to how far, and readers will trust the spacing anyway unless the drawing says the distances are not real.
Mental Model
Schlep Blindness
Paul Graham's term for the human tendency to unconsciously dismiss opportunities that involve tedious, unglamorous work ('schlep' is Yiddish for an arduous journey)
Mental Model
Scientific Method
A family of practices for developing and checking explanations through evidence, explicit reasoning, criticism, and revision
Cognitive Move
Scope
Ask how wide a territory the action covers: which parts, which people, which days, which goals are in and which are out. Unlike size or frequency, this narrows or widens the boundary line around what the plan includes.
Mental Model
Scope Insensitivity
The failure of human emotion and valuation to scale proportionally with the magnitude of an issue
Cognitive Move
Score
Retest the exact function you measured before, plus the real-world task result, against your prediction; feeling calmer alone doesn't count.
Cognitive Move
Scoreboard Hijack
Compare the rewarded proxy metric against an independent measure of the real outcome.
Cognitive Move
Scoreboard Hijack
A hypothesis that proxy-directed behavior is improving the measure while the real mission outcome diverges.
Cognitive Move
scored drill
Short attempts repeated many times under a scoring rule that pays for the behavior you are after and pays nothing for the habit you are trying to drop. The score line, not the coach, does the correcting, and the flat stretches show exactly where the habit took over.
Cognitive Move
Scoring
Write the arithmetic that turns counted events into the reported figure, plus the cutoff that turns that figure into a verdict. Name the numerator, the denominator, how you aggregate, and what number counts as a win.
Mental Model
Screen Time Audit Practice
A screen time audit objectively measures device usage patterns against intended usage using built-in tracking (iOS Screen Time, Android Digital Wellbeing, RescueTime)
Mental Model
Screen Time Reduction Protocol
A graduated protocol for reducing non-essential screen time without the unsustainable cold-turkey approach
Mental Model
Screening
Mechanisms designed by the less-informed party to extract private information from the more-informed party—the demand-side complement to signaling
Mental Model
Sea-Lioning (Bad Faith Questioning)
Named after a 2014 Wondermark comic, sea-lioning is the practice of persistently pursuing an argument by repeatedly asking questions or requesting evidence in a way that appears civil and reasonable on the surface but is…
Cognitive Move
Search Externally
Look outside your own memory for information, precedents, or resources that already exist.
Mental Model
Season-Reason-Lifetime Friendship Model
This folk wisdom framework, popularized in various forms across self-help literature, categorizes friendships by their natural duration and purpose: Season friendships serve you during a specific life period (college fri…
Mental Model
Seasonal Living Framework
Seasonal living applies ecological seasonality to human life design—recognizing that energy, creativity, and social needs fluctuate with light patterns and temperature
Mental Model
Seasonal Rest Cycling
Human energy and creativity naturally fluctuate across seasons, but modern work demands constant year-round output
Mental Model
Seasonal Round (Cyclical Living)
The Seasonal Round describes cyclical patterns of movement, subsistence, ceremony, and social organization aligned with ecological rhythms