M · MAP
Quick Recipes
Short methods that combine cognitive moves. Try one, then check whether it helps.
Check the move
Choose a named move in this branch to open its working page and checks.
- Ban-the-Map
When your current framing keeps producing the same answers, ban one of its core elements for five minutes and build three replacements before comparing.
- Noun to Verb
Rewrite a static label as an ongoing process ('motivation' becomes 'conditions that initiate and sustain action') so it becomes something you can influence.
- Person to Handoff
When blame lands on an individual in coordinated work, look instead at the handoff or interface nearest the failure.
- Event to Loop
When a fix works briefly and the problem returns, trace one consequence back to an earlier cause and mark its sign and delay.
- Snapshot to Movie
When a present state seems inexplicable, draw the before, transition, and now frames, then predict the next one.
- Average to Distribution
When the average describes almost nobody, show the spread, subgroups, and tails instead.
- Category to Continuum
Replace a brittle binary label with one or two measurable axes and locate the boundary cases.
- Outcome to Mechanism
When a target is being mistaken for a plan, draw the shortest causal chain from intervention to outcome and mark the weakest link.
- Boundary Sweep
When a seemingly self-contained system keeps surprising you, add one upstream layer, one downstream layer, one adjacent actor, and one externality, then prune what changes nothing.
- 10x In / 10x Out
When the useful scale is unclear, inspect a unit ten times smaller and a system ten times larger and compare which gives you more control.
- Reverse the Arrow
When forward reasoning branches too widely, start from the endpoint and ask what had to be true immediately before it.
- Change the Observer
When one viewpoint is treated as the whole situation, write one sentence each from the actor, recipient, operator, outsider, and future-self views.
- Missing Column
When a debate keeps repeating, put the options in rows and add the one column whose values could reverse the judgment.
- Minimal Pair
When two concepts blur together, build two cases identical except for one feature and ask whether your classification or action should change.
- Constraint Sandwich
When optimization is damaging something important, write 'improve X, while preserving Y, under Z' and map what's actually feasible.
- Table Before Prose
When long prose keeps repeating the same fields, pull the entities into rows and the attributes into columns, keeping narrative only for exceptions.
- Draw Before Explain
When dependencies are hard to hold in words, draw nodes and typed arrows first, and delete any edge you cannot define.
- Three Translations
When you can't tell whether your framing or your format is failing, encode the same content in three media and run the same task on each.
- State Ledger
When work keeps restarting after interruptions, keep one persistent page holding current state, open questions, decisions, and the next action.
- Manipulable Toy
When a theory sounds right but its consequences stay vague, build the smallest spreadsheet, simulation, or prototype with one variable you can change.