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Productivity & Learning

Elaborative Interrogation

A learning technique where you ask 'why is this true?' and 'how does this connect to what I already know?' for each new piece of information

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Energy Cycles (Ultradian Rhythms)

Physiological ultradian rhythms occur within a day, but a fixed ninety-minute waking productivity cycle is not established for everyone.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Experimental Mindset

An orientation toward explicit hypotheses, informative comparisons, bounded trials, and revision based on observed results.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Focus on High-leverage Activities

The discipline of consistently identifying and prioritizing the small number of activities that produce disproportionate results

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Four Methods of Completion (Completion, Deletion, Delegation, Deferment)

A task-disposition heuristic: do, delete, delegate, or defer after clarifying what the item requires.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Generation Effect (Creating Your Own Examples)

A memory effect in which generating target information can improve later memory compared with reading, under particular task conditions.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Goals and Systems

A distinction between intended outcomes and recurring processes that may support them; they can be used together.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Guiding Structure

A heuristic for examining how an arrangement of resources, constraints, and relationships influences the path actions tend to follow.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

High Agency

A practical disposition toward resourceful, appropriate action: clarify obstacles, seek options, and act where influence is possible.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Humanness Principle

A practical approach to human–AI collaboration that preserves meaningful human purpose, context, relationships, accountability, and necessary capability.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Imposter Syndrome

An experience of doubting or discounting evidence of competence and fearing exposure as less capable than others believe.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Interleaving (Mixed Practice)

Mixing related problem types or skills during practice so learners must often select the appropriate approach, with effects that depend on task and schedule.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

KISS Principle

A heuristic to use the simplest solution that meets the actual requirements, considering complexity transferred to other people or systems.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Makers vs Manager’s Schedule

A distinction between tasks needing extended continuity and tasks organized around shorter appointments; people can use both scheduling modes.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Most Important Tasks (MITs)

The productivity practice of identifying 1-3 critical tasks each day that would make the day a success regardless of everything else

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Plus One Minus Two Rule

A subtraction heuristic that prompts review of existing commitments before adding another, with the ratio treated flexibly.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Reversible and Irreversible Decisions (One-Way or Two-Way-Doors Decisions)

A heuristic for matching deliberation and trial scope to the actual difficulty and consequences of reversing a decision.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

SMART Formula

A flexible objective-writing checklist; common modern wording is Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound, while Doran's original used Assignable and Realistic.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Scaffolding (Structured Support That's Gradually Removed)

Responsive support that enables participation beyond current independent performance and transfers responsibility as capability develops.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Slippery Slope Argument

An argument that an initial step can enable or increase the likelihood of a sequence leading to an unacceptable result.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Spacing Effect

Distributing learning episodes over time often improves later retention relative to comparable massed practice, with benefits dependent on material and timing.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Testing Effect (Retrieval Practice)

Using attempts to retrieve information as learning events can improve later retention under many conditions, with effects depending on the task and schedule.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

The 2-List System

A prioritization exercise that separates a small active goal set from attractive goals deliberately not pursued during the same period.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Thinking-Feeling-Thinking Loop

A reflective heuristic that uses emotional response to generate questions for further analysis, while treating feelings as fallible and context-dependent.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Transfer of Learning (Near vs Far)

The influence of learning on performance in another task or context, with similarity and difference varying across several dimensions.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Twaddling (Meaningless Activity)

An informal label for activity whose contribution to its intended purpose is too small to justify the time or attention it consumes.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Win-Win Game

An arrangement that participating parties prefer to a specified alternative, often made possible by differing priorities or newly created options.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Wonder Questions

Curiosity-driven questions that turn a specific puzzle into an opportunity for inquiry, without assuming a predetermined answer.

Learning & Performance

Productivity & Learning

Zone of Proximal Development (Vygotsky)

Lev Vygotsky's concept describing the gap between what a learner can do independently and what they can do with guidance

Learning & Performance