Mental Model
Learned Helplessness Pattern (Extended)
Martin Seligman's original finding—that organisms exposed to inescapable adverse conditions stop trying even when escape becomes possible—extended to its subtle manifestations in modern life
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Cognitive Move
Learning objective
Set the goal as knowledge gained rather than output produced. You succeed when you can say which method works and why, backed by tests you ran. Choose it when a result is demanded but the working mechanism is still unproven.
Cognitive Move
Learning or exploration
A destination whose product is decision-relevant information rather than immediate performance.
Mental Model
Learning Progression Maps
A learning progression map visualizes how competence develops in a domain, showing the sequence of concepts, skills, and thresholds from novice to expert
Mental Model
Lectio Divina Method
Lectio Divina ('divine reading') is a structured contemplative reading practice from the Benedictine monastic tradition, dating to the 6th century
Cognitive Move
ledger
Dated entries, each a change, with a running total in the last column. The discipline is that the total must reconcile against something outside the ledger. When it does not, the gap is not an annoyance, it is the finding, and it tells you exactly which entry to go look at.
Cognitive Move
Ledger
Keep one running page that carries current status forward: what is open, what changed, what you decided, and the next action. Unlike a checklist of tasks, it records accumulated state over time so you can resume mid-stream without rebuilding context.
Mental Model
Left-Hand Column Technique
Chris Argyris's exercise where you write what was actually said in a conversation in the right column and what you were thinking but didn't say in the left column
Mental Model
Legacy Letter Framework
A legacy letter (also called an ethical will) is a structured document that transmits values, life lessons, hopes, and blessings to loved ones — distinct from a legal will that transfers assets
Mental Model
Legacy System Trap
The pattern where a system that was once fit for purpose becomes an increasingly expensive liability but cannot be replaced because too many other systems depend on it
Mental Model
Legal Realism vs. Formalism
Legal formalism holds that law is a self-contained system of rules that can be applied logically to produce correct answers—the judge simply finds the relevant rule and applies it mechanically
Mental Model
Legal Reasoning by Analogy
Legal reasoning by analogy is the core method of common-law thinking: a court decides a current case by identifying a relevantly similar past case (precedent), extracting the principle that governed the prior decision, a…
Mental Model
Legal Risk Matrix
Practicing lawyers perform continuous risk assessment that maps legal exposure across two dimensions: probability of an adverse outcome and magnitude of consequences
Cognitive Move
legal-move map
Only your current state, and a fan of the moves open from it. Everything not reachable in one step is dimmed or left off the page. Each arrow carries the condition that makes it available. This is the version for deciding what to do this week, because it answers the question you actually have, which is what is on the table now rather than what the whole system is capable of.
Cognitive Move
Legends
Write down, in ordinary words, what every symbol and arrow in your notation stands for, and keep that key visible beside the work. It is the decoder that lets you, or anyone else, read the compressed page months later without guessing.
Mental Model
Legibility (James C. Scott)
Scott's insight that states and large organizations must make complex realities 'legible'—simplified and standardized enough to be measured, managed, and controlled from above
Mental Model
Leisure as Identity Expression
How people spend leisure time reveals and constructs identity more authentically than professional roles
Cognitive Move
Levels to rates
Measure how fast something is changing and in which direction, not where it currently stands. A low score climbing steadily is a different problem than a high one sliding, though a single snapshot scores them the same.
Mental Model
Leverage
Mechanical leverage changes force and distance through geometry without creating energy
Mental Model
Leverage (Negotiation)
The relative power each party has in a negotiation, determined primarily by four factors: (1) alternatives (BATNA—your best option if this deal falls through), (2) information asymmetry (knowing something the other side…
Cognitive Move
Leverage and controllability
Two tests, both required. First, does the move touch the structure actually holding the outcome in place, rather than a visible symptom of it? Second, can you personally change that structure, or does someone else hold the switch?
Mental Model
Leverage Points
Donella Meadows's framework identifying the places in a complex system where a small intervention can produce large, lasting change