Scientific Definition
Each day: one big thing, three medium things, five small things. Nothing else counts.
Plain-English Definition
Each day: one big thing, three medium things, five small things. Nothing else counts.
Feynman Explanation
If you accomplished nine things today and the big one wasn't one of them, you had a busy zero.
Core Principle
Each day: one big thing, three medium things, five small things. Nothing else counts.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Each day: one big thing, three medium things, five small things. Nothing else counts.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Calendar design and executive focus.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
If you accomplished nine things today and the big one wasn't one of them, you had a busy zero.
Examples
- A daily-prioritization heuristic popularized through productivity manuals.
- Calendar design and executive focus.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Write the one before you check email. Once you read inbound, the one is somebody else's.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Write the one before you check email. Once you read inbound, the one is somebody else's.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
How will I feel about this in 10 minutes / 10 months / 10 years?
Inattention or forgetfulness caused by low attention, hyperfocus, or distraction.
Forgetting to compare an offer with the next-best alternative.
Outcomes that could have happened but did not.
Overthinking a situation so that decision-making stalls.
The first number on the table silently sets the range for every number after it.
Tversky & Kahneman's classic: identical outcomes flip from 'risk averse' to 'risk seeking' when framed as lives saved vs. lives lost.
Our perception is shaped by what we selectively pay attention to.
Favoring suggestions from automated systems over conflicting human judgment.
A color appears different depending on adjacent colors.
Decisions are constrained by available information, cognitive limits, and time.
The ability to focus on one voice in a noisy environment.