Mental Model
Difficult Topic Opener Framework
A protocol for the critical first 30 seconds of a sensitive conversation — the opening that determines whether the discussion will be productive or defensive
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Mental Model
Diffusion of Innovations
Everett Rogers’s account of how innovations are communicated, adopted, adapted, or rejected within a social system over time
Mental Model
Diffusion of Responsibility
The phenomenon where the presence of others reduces each individual's sense of personal responsibility to act—because each person assumes someone else will handle it
Mental Model
Digital Activism Effectiveness Model
The digital activism effectiveness model evaluates when online actions translate to real-world impact versus 'slacktivism.' Morozov argues digital tools create efficacy illusions (petitions, profile changes) substituting…
Mental Model
Digital Declutter Protocol
Digital declutter systematically eliminates accumulated digital excess
Mental Model
Digital Detox Framework
A digital detox is the deliberate, time-bounded removal of digital devices to restore attention and recalibrate the brain's reward system
Mental Model
Digital Garden Philosophy
The digital garden treats knowledge management as cultivation rather than construction
Mental Model
Digital Legacy Planning
Digital legacy planning manages your digital presence, accounts, and data after death or incapacitation
Mental Model
Digital Minimalism Framework (Newport)
Cal Newport's digital minimalism focuses online time on carefully selected activities strongly supporting your values, happily missing everything else
Mental Model
Digital Sabbath Practice
The Digital Sabbath (or Technology Shabbat) is a structured practice of completely disconnecting from digital devices for a defined period — typically 24 hours weekly, though some practitioners use daily or seasonal rhyt…
Mental Model
Digital Security Emergency Protocol
A protocol for responding to digital security emergencies — account compromises, identity theft, data breaches, ransomware, or suspected device compromise
Mental Model
Digital Sunset Practice Protocol
A protocol for managing evening screen exposure to protect sleep quality and create space for meaningful evening activities
Cognitive Move
Dimensions that define the region
List the few variables an outcome gets measured on before you set any limits on them. These are the axes the good set lives in. Leave one out and the region silently permits results everyone would reject.
Mental Model
Diminishing Sensitivity
The psychological principle that the perceived difference between two stimuli decreases as their absolute magnitude increases
Mental Model
Diplomatic Immunity as Institution
Diplomatic immunity—the principle that accredited diplomats cannot be prosecuted under host country laws—is a foundational institution making international relations possible
Mental Model
Diplomatic Recognition as Leverage
Diplomatic recognition—the formal acknowledgment that another entity constitutes a sovereign government—is powerful precisely because it is binary, public, and difficult to reverse
Cognitive Move
Direct parties
Name the people the destination lands on first-hand, the ones who live inside the outcome day to day. These are first-order effects, not ripples: whoever shows up, does the work, pays, or has to live with the result immediately.
Cognitive Move
Direction and baseline
Pin down one valued variable, say which way counts as better, and record where it stands right now in observable terms. Without a measured starting point, any later claim of progress is unfalsifiable, since you have nothing to compare this month against.
Cognitive Move
Directional improvement
A commitment to move a valued variable in a better direction without pretending you know the optimal endpoint.
Mental Model
Directly Responsible Individual
Apple's organizational principle that every project, task, or decision has ONE specific person who is the Directly Responsible Individual (DRI)—not a committee, not a team, but a single named person who owns the outcome
Mental Model
Disconfirmation Bias
The asymmetry in how people evaluate evidence: evidence that CONFIRMS existing beliefs is accepted quickly and uncritically, while evidence that DISCONFIRMS existing beliefs is scrutinized intensely, picked apart, and di…
Mental Model
Discount Rate
A discount rate converts future amounts into present equivalents for a stated valuation framework
Mental Model
Discounted Cash Flow
A valuation method that estimates the present value of an asset based on its projected future cash flows, discounted at a rate reflecting the riskiness of those cash flows
Mental Model
Discovery as Information Warfare
In civil litigation, discovery is the pre-trial process where each side compels the other to produce documents, answer questions under oath (depositions), and respond to written interrogatories