🛠️ Toolbox #9: Before Death Plans, Emotional Tuning & If-Then Plans

🛠️ Welcome to the Weekly Toolbox. Our most practical resources, tools and strategies so you can level up each week in minutes.

1. Tune Your Emotional Processing

We stumbled upon this blog recently and were blown away at the honesty, logic and practicality of the advice. How do you tune into your emotions? Like actually get close to them and understand the story they are a part of.

This post provides a clear process on how to surface negative emotions, look at them and process them. Our favourite part comes in the further section reading:

2. Learning How To Think About Your Thinking

Did you people the key predictor for people who hold dogmatic, radical political views (Like far-right supporters) ? Low metacognition.

Metacognition, or thinking about thinking, is a key predictor for overall ability to discern fact from fiction. It’s a determinant for how well our our BS meter can interpret data around us.

In this brilliant podcast, Dr. Steve Fleming, cognitive neuroscientist and metacognition researcher at United College London gives us insight into developing metacognition.

3. Mindful Productivity with Anne-Laure Le Cunff | BrainTools #59

A throwback to one of our favourite guest interviews. Anne-Laure Le Cunff is an ex-Googler who went on to an MSc of Applied Neuroscience at King's College. And now, she’s the founder of Ness Labs - an online mindful productivity community teaching at the intersection of neuroscience and entrepreneurship. Her work has been featured in WIRED, Forbes, Rolling Stone, and more. 

This episode was packed with frameworks, tools and strategies from the Makers Mind creator (Anne-Laure's newsletter) herself. A listen well worth your time.

Listen on Apple or Spotify.

🤔 Brain Riddle

I speak without a mouth and hear without ears. I have no body, but come alive with the wind. What am I?

Find the answer at the bottom of the newsletter!

☕️ If/then implementation intentions

How many new years resolutions have you started, then failed?

The issue when we set goals for habits is that they lack time-based implementation contexts. Our brain doesn’t know when to implement the behaviour, and as such it’s forgotten entirely. Like a dormant gym membership.

Here’s how to implement new habits using the cognitive neuroscience of habit formation: the if/then implementation plan.

Implementation

1. Map out the behaviour or habit you want to implement.

2. Create an implementation plan for the behaviour following this structure:
   

   1. If/when this …. { insert environmental cue }

   2. Then I will … { insert behaviour }

   
   For example: When I wake up, then I will go for a 20 minute run
   

3. Motivate yourself to stick to this implementation plan and don’t allow your brain to break this routine.

Further Reading & Studies

• An Introductory Study of the Impact of Implementation Intentions

• Time for Change: Using Implementation Intentions to Promote Physical Activity in a Randomised Pilot Trial

⏮️ The Power of Pre-Mortems

We have a greatest-of-all-time (GOAT) question. Here it is:
 
𝗜𝗺𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗻𝗲 𝘄𝗲 𝗴𝗲𝘁 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝗻𝗱 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗶𝘀 [𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘂𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻/𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗷𝗲𝗰𝘁/𝗿𝗲𝗹𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽] 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘄𝗲'𝘃𝗲 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗲𝗱. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗺𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁 𝗯𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗼𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘀𝗼𝗻𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗳𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴?
 
We constantly ask ourselves what we should do, or what success looks like. We strive for more.
 
But we miss a crucial point, that the late, great and notoriously witty Charlie Monger said:
 
“𝙄𝙩’𝙨 𝙢𝙪𝙘𝙝 𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙞𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙤 𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙞𝙙 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙥𝙞𝙙𝙞𝙩𝙮, 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙩𝙤 𝙨𝙚𝙚𝙠 𝙗𝙧𝙞𝙡𝙡𝙞𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙚.”
 
I agree.
 
If we can forecast the conditions for failure, and avoid it at all cost, then the probability of success skyrockets 🚀 
 
It’s a classic case of inverted thinking. You're flipping the problem on its head and seeing it from a different angle. This is what we call pre-mortems.

Implementation

Some variations of this question for you to use:
 
1. You interview for a new job and they ask you if you have any questions: 𝙇𝙚𝙩’𝙨 𝙨𝙖𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙖𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙖 𝙮𝙚𝙖𝙧, 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙧𝙚𝙡𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨𝙝𝙞𝙥 𝙝𝙖𝙨𝙣’𝙩 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙠𝙚𝙙 𝙤𝙪𝙩. 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙪𝙡𝙙 𝙗𝙚 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙨?
 
2. You’re a few years into a romantic relationship: 𝙇𝙚𝙩’𝙨 𝙨𝙖𝙮 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙖𝙛𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙖 𝙛𝙚𝙬 𝙮𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙨, 𝙬𝙚 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙠 𝙪𝙥. 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙢𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙗𝙚 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨?
 
3. You start a company: 𝙁𝙖𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙙 3 𝙮𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙬𝙚’𝙫𝙚 𝙛𝙖𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙙. 𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙤𝙢𝙥𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙙𝙞𝙚𝙨. 𝙒𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙢𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙗𝙚 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙤𝙣𝙨 𝙛𝙤𝙧 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨?
 
So, define failure.

Stare it in the face and forecast what reasons might lead to it. And put structures in place to make that possibility the most unlikely of destinations.
 
You'll likely turn the odds of success in your favour 🎰 

Research & Further Reading

• Performing A Project Pre-Mortem | HBR

• Pre-Mortem Project Management Strategy | Atlassian