Trigger-Action Planning — LessWrong
Summary
TAP is the subtle technique to improve your autopilot “The TAP is a sort of pop-up dialog box that says "Hi there! This is a chance to remember that you had a goal to take the stairs more often. Would you like to do anything about that?"
Why TAP framing is useful? We are TAP machines, sort of similar to the example from a wasp from the text. {{ The sphex wasp mindlessly repeats its egg-laying sequence up to 40 times or more if its paralyzed prey is moved a few inches from the burrow entrance - each time the wasp brings the prey to the burrow, goes inside to check it, comes out, finds the moved prey, and starts over }} Demonstrating how complex-looking behaviors can actually be simple trigger-action patterns without real cognitive flexibility.
TAP, however, is not gonna fix a deeper internal conflict, conflicted motivation dynamics.
My experience
I loved rereading the idea of TAPs in CFAR book. Initially I read it via The power of habit and Atomic Habits but the framing faded away and I stopped using it actively. I think the definition of TAP was blurry. I didn’t understand really the usefulness of distinguishing of T (triggers) and A (actions) and stopped being proactive at setting Ts in my life. One action can be the next action’s trigger, but one can set up super easy actions as triggers, missing links for the next actions.
October 28, 2024