Scientific Definition
Where you can go is constrained by where you've been.
Plain-English Definition
Where you can go is constrained by where you've been.
Feynman Explanation
Today's options are yesterday's decisions wearing new clothes.
Core Principle
Where you can go is constrained by where you've been.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
Where you can go is constrained by where you've been.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Recognizing structural constraints in strategy.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
Today's options are yesterday's decisions wearing new clothes.
Examples
- Tech stack debt. Org structure debt. Strategic debt.
- Recognizing structural constraints in strategy.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Periodically audit historical decisions still shaping today.
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.
- Periodically audit historical decisions still shaping today.
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.
Small advantages, applied consistently, become uncatchable.
Creative work needs blocks of hours; managerial work runs on 30-minute slices. They destroy each other when mixed.
Pre-allocate every hour to a category before the day starts.
People preferentially process experience visually, auditorily, or kinesthetically. Match the channel; match the mind.
How much we value the present over the future.
How vividly we connect to our future self predicts long-term decision quality.
An automatic action triggered by a stable cue — built through repetition.
A single habit whose adoption cascades into many other behavior changes.
A present-bias kink (β) on top of exponential discounting (δ): immediate rewards get a bonus, all future rewards trade normally.
We judge probability by how similar an event is to a prototype.
H1 (managing the present) + H2 (transition mechanisms) + H3 (transformative futures) held simultaneously.
Our decisions are influenced by when events occur or when we evaluate them.