Week 9 Crit: If, then

Turning a vague intention into a rule with a trigger in it. The room writes if-then plans for its own spirals, then tries to break them.

3 May 2027

Second of the cohort’s picks, and another one that came up in the thread under several names. “I have a rule about it.” Treat the plan below as pencil, not ink. The forum can still move things around in the weeks that follow.

Before the session#

Bring three triggers. Not three worries, three triggers. The moment just before it starts. Opening the laptop at 11pm. Seeing a name in the inbox. Leaving a room where you said something. Getting into bed.

Specific ones. “When I feel anxious” is not a trigger, it is the weather.

In the session#

We write plans in one shape, and only one.

If [this exact situation], then I will [this exact thing].

The activity comes first and the name comes later, so spend the first half just writing them. Three each, minimum. Then we stress-test them against each other in pairs, and your partner’s only job is to break yours. There are three standard ways a plan breaks.

• The cue is too vague to fire. You will never notice “when I start overthinking”, because noticing is the hard part.
• The action is too big. “Then I will do forty minutes of journalling” is a plan for a better person on a better day.
• The plan is a wish. “Then I will stop” is not an action. It is the outcome you wanted, with the word “then” in front.

Rewrite until your partner cannot break it. Then swap.

Last round, out loud and optional. Read one plan to the room. You can pass, and you can read a plan you have deliberately made generic. Nobody is going to ask what the trigger really was.

The thing worth noticing#

Everyone in this room has decided to overthink less. It has not worked. The claim behind this crit is that the deciding was never the missing piece, and that what is missing is a cue specific enough to fire on its own, attached to an action small enough to survive a bad day.

The lecture this week has the research and the honest size of the effect. It runs after this on purpose, because the course names things after you have already made them.

Afterwards#

Carry the three plans into the week. One line in the log per plan, saying whether the cue fired at all. A plan whose cue never fired is not a failed plan, it is a badly chosen trigger, and that distinction is the whole skill.