The Art of Anchoring

Make the problem an anchor for the tool that helps you solve it.

Until you fully internalize a skill, the biggest obstacle in effectively using it is remembrance: remembering to use the skill-tool when the situation calls for it.

Oft-times, even though you have the knowledge to solve a life-problem, in the moment, the solution simply does not present itself. In this case, it’s not a matter of possessing information (which you do), but of of accessing the information.

This is a huge topic, and, I think, an essential component of the Art of Learning. The meat of the issue is integration, how you structurally organize the mental information. The mantra here is:

Connect everything.

But I think it’s also useful to create specific access points, in the form of “anchors“. It’s like creating shortcuts, direct connections between two pieces of information (in this case, between stimulus-information and response-information).

As an example, breathing is an essential life-tool for relaxing and calming yourself. Problem-situations (real or imagined) restrict your natural breathing patterns. But how often do you remember to use this tool?

Anchoring the tool to a specific category of life-problems makes it readily available.