Greggle · Kinds of thing
Eleven kinds of thingA goal is not a problem, and a decision is not a risk. Greggle asks what kind of thing you are working on first, because the kind decides what good questions look like. It also decides the word the app uses from then on: Delete this Problem?, not Delete this thing.
Every way of thinking is always available, whatever you pick: the fourteen from the library, the eight the later kinds brought with them, and two of Greggle’s own either side, the knowledge audit first and the decision journal last. The kind decides the order in between.
Every method assumes you know things. This one asks what: what you know for certain and how, what you believe, what you are assuming without noticing, and which of those would change the answer if they turned out to be wrong. Fifteen minutes before you pick a method, so the method works on facts and you know where the guesses are. Donna Ogle's classroom chart from 1986, rearranged. On paper it is a card; in the app it is the first thing offered whatever the kind, with a check that will not pass a fact without a source, or a belief the answer turns on that nobody is checking.
Something you are aiming at, without a fixed end date.
say… Make the first team this season.
The word the app uses is Goal, and there is no end date to plan back from, so the first thing suggested is a pre-mortem on the goal itself and the last is a set of key results that would prove you moved.
suggested first
Knowledge Audit, Pre-mortem, Working Backwards, Force Field Analysis, First Principles, Objectives and Key Results
Something you are setting out to do that finishes.
say… The science fair project.
A Project has an end, so the questions are about what done looks like and what could stop you getting there. Anything you make before choosing a kind is a Project until you say otherwise, and you can change it in one click.
suggested first
Knowledge Audit, Pre-mortem, Working Backwards, Theory of Constraints, Stakeholder and Influence Map, Strategic Challenge Map
Something difficult to win, where the outcome is not yours to control.
say… The debating final.
The outcome sits with someone else, a judge, a market, a panel, so the questions turn outward: what are the challenges, who decides, what could the world do, and how do you put the case.
suggested first
Knowledge Audit, Strategic Challenge Map, Issue Tree, Stakeholder and Influence Map, Scenario Planning, First Principles, Answer First
Something that has gone wrong and needs diagnosing.
say… The band keeps missing practice.
Something has already happened, so the questions are about cause. The first thing asked is to state the problem as an observable fact, not a feeling, and then why, and why again.
suggested first
Knowledge Audit, 5 Whys, Cause and Effect, Issue Tree, Theory of Constraints, First Principles
A choice between options.
say… Which subjects to take next year.
There are options and the danger is that you already like one of them, so the questions insist on what a good answer must do before the options are allowed on the page. It is also the one kind that ends with a journal entry, so that in a year you can find out whether you were right.
suggested first
Knowledge Audit, Issue Tree, Options and Criteria, First Principles, Force Field Analysis, Pre-mortem, Answer First, Decision Journal
Something that might be worth pursuing, before you have decided to.
say… A stall at the Saturday market.
You haven’t said yes yet, so the questions are about whether to: what is pushing for it and holding it back, what it would have to do to be worth it, and how it looks in four different futures.
suggested first
Knowledge Audit, Force Field Analysis, Options and Criteria, Scenario Planning, Stakeholder and Influence Map, Pre-mortem
Something that could go wrong, and has not yet.
say… What if the venue cancels?
It hasn’t happened, so the questions borrow from the methods for things that have: imagine it did and ask why, look across every category of cause, and find the one restraint you could remove.
suggested first
Knowledge Audit, Pre-mortem, Cause and Effect, Force Field Analysis
Something you want to do, or stop doing, without deciding every time.
say… Practise before school every day.
Doing something without deciding is a different problem from deciding to do it, so the questions are about the moment and the obstacle: what inside you gets in the way, and what you will do when it shows up. Gabriele Oettingen’s WOOP and Peter Gollwitzer’s if-then plans are the two methods with the strongest evidence behind them.
suggested first
Something you want to get properly good at, not just do.
say… Solder a clean joint every time.
Getting better and spending hours are different things, so the questions are about the edge: the one part you can nearly do, the drill that isolates it, and feedback you can’t argue with. Anders Ericsson’s deliberate practice, and the Feynman technique as the check that you understand a thing rather than recognise it.
suggested first
Knowledge Audit, Deliberate practice, Feynman technique, Working Backwards
Something you have to say to someone, and are dreading.
say… Asking the coach why I was dropped.
The outcome depends on another person, so the questions are about them as much as you: what a camera would have recorded before what you concluded from it, and their story of what happened beside yours. Chris Argyris’s ladder of inference, and the three conversations from the Harvard Negotiation Project.
suggested first
Knowledge Audit, Ladder of inference, Three conversations, Stakeholder and Influence Map
Something that has to persuade or explain, and is not yet written.
say… The personal statement.
It has a reader, so the questions start from their side: what they already believe, what changed, and the question that puts in their mind. Situation, complication, question, answer for the opening, Answer First for the argument beneath it, and the reverse outline for a draft that exists and isn’t working.
suggested first
Seven was a start. The four that came later, a habit, a skill, a conversation and a document, each brought two methods of their own, and those eight are below: in the app, and as cards that need nothing but a pen.
Each of the four later kinds came with the two methods that suit it best. None of them were invented here either. Every one is in the app, offered first for its kind, and every one is a one-page card that needs nothing but a pen.
Wish, outcome, obstacle, plan. Picture the best result, then the thing inside you that gets in the way, then what you will do when it does.
Tie the action to a moment. "If it is 7am and I have eaten, then I practise for twenty minutes." Deciding once, so you never have to decide again.
Work at the edge of what you can do, on one specific thing, with feedback you can’t ignore. Hours are not practice.
Explain it in writing to a twelve-year-old. Where you stall, you don’t understand it yet. Go back for exactly that, and try again.
You saw something, picked out part of it, added meaning, assumed, concluded, and acted, in about a second. Climb back down before you speak.
Every hard conversation is three at once: what happened, how it feels, and what it says about you. Sort them out before you have them out loud.
Start where the reader already agrees, say what changed, raise the question that change puts in their mind, and answer it. The opening that earns the rest.
Take the draft you have and write one sentence per paragraph saying what it actually says. The list is the argument you actually made, which is rarely the one you meant to.
The read-back check says what is missing from a plan. This says what was missing from your judgement, which nobody else can tell you. One entry per decision: what you decided, what you expect, how sure you are, put away until a date you set now, then what actually happened and whether you were right for the reasons you gave. A year of them shows where to trust yourself and where to check. Peter Drucker's feedback analysis, on a page or on a board: in the app it closes the list for a Decision, and its check refuses an entry with no review date.
Free, no account, works offline. Your work stays on your device.
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