Recently Added Practices
Anger Expression DeskMake an "Anger Expression Services" sign, and go to a public place. When people approach, offer them various tools to get in touch with their anger and to express it. Tools like: warrior facepaint, pillows to punch, lists of swearwords, and so on.
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Good, Bad, UglyDebrief structure for teams. Gather together the group that just did something together (a work project, activity etc). Go round the circle popcorn-style, with one category at a time and ask for things that were:Good: things that went well
Bad: things that went badly, that were out of our control
Ugly: things that went badly, that were within our controlThese observations can be written down or used as the starting point o
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Virtual Hide and SeekYou have a chat group together with the other person you're playing with. Drop a pin where you are into the chat at the beginning of the game. Then set a timer for 30 minutes and go somewhere nearby. Every 5 minutes you have to send a panorama photo of where you are to the group chat. At the 30 min mark they drop a pin in the chat on maps that is where they think you are. When they 'tag' you by correctly guessing where you are
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Hourly checkinsPlayers set a periodic or random bell or timer, and when it goes off, they assess their interpersonal dynamics over the last hour.
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MurphyjitsuIn the course of making plans, Murphyjitsu is the practice of strengthening plans by repeatedly envisioning and defending against failure modes until you would be shocked to see it fail. Hereās the basic setup of Murphyjitsu:Make a plan.Imagine that youāve passed the deadline and find out that the plan failed.If youāre shocked in this scenario, youāre done.Otherwise, simulate the most likely failure mode, defen
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Commitment CanvasPlayed with 2-5 people that want to explore and manifest their intentions, commitments and values as a dyad or group. Prepare a blank canvas, pens, paint and brushes, a bit of water. You can also use other painting utensils. The more people play, the bigger the canvas should be.
Sit in a circle and start painting on the canvas together, freely, capturing your mood or the mood of the group, or whatever really! Use brushes, fin
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Internal Double Crux[From the CFAR Handbook: https://www.rationality.org/files/CFAR_Handbook_2021-01.pdf]The IDC algorithmFind an internal disagreementā¢ A āshouldā thatās counter to your current default actionā¢ Something you feel you arenāt supposed to think or believe (though secretly you do)ā¢ A step toward your goal that feels useless or unpleasantOperationalize the disagreementā¢ If there are more than two sides, choose
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Five Whys[by Sakichi Toyoda, used at Toyota Manufacturing Corporation. Text from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five_whys]Five whys (or 5 whys) is an iterative interrogative technique used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem. The primary goal of the technique is to determine the root cause of a defect or problem by repeating the question "Why?". Each answer forms the basis of the next question
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Work CyclesCopy the following spreadsheet template and follow the instructions in the sheet to decide on, prioritize and execute your work in planned 30 minute cycles. Can be done in a group with a facilitator calling time and coaching participants who get stuck in their work to help them get unstuck.https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ABNDeoyhsyFG61I3uZFxdKslL7elAQpL_L6A9KqzXwY/copyBy Sebastian Marshall of Ultraworking [https:/
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Hamming Questions[from the CFAR Handbook: https://www.rationality.org/files/CFAR_Handbook_2021-01.pdf]Richard Hamming was a mathematician at Bell Labs from the 1940ās through the 1970ās who liked to sit down with strangers in the company
cafeteria and ask them about their fields of expertise. At first, he would ask mainly about their day-to-day work, but eventually, he would turn the
conversation toward the big, open questionsāwhat were the
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Focusing[by Eugene Gendlin, from https://focusing.org/sixsteps]What follows is a lightly edited excerpt from The Focusing Manual, chapter four of Focusing by Eugene Gendlin.The inner act of Focusing can be broken down into six main sub-acts or movements. As you gain more practice, you wonāt need to think of these as six separate parts of the process. To think of them as separate movements makes the process seem more mechanical tha
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The WorkAn interview about false beliefs, the emotions that come up around them, and past moments when those emotions were strong. Originally by Byron Katie, with mods by Joe Edelman.
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Non-Obvious Potential"What non-obvious potential do we see in you?"One person is in focus. Everyone in the group shares a non-obvious potential they see in that person. The group may or may not explore that theme and their appreciation for the persons underlying qualities more deeply. Then the next person is in focus until everyones non-obvious potential was spoken into existence.E.g. I see great potential in you as a mentor / cult leader / mo
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ASMR concertStimulate your partnerās hearing with ASMR sounds. The player listening has the eyes covered. Then switch roles.
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Guess my smell tripTake a few odors and write a description of what experience they provoked on you. The other players have to guess the odors from your description.
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GuessmellTake a few odors (they can be essential oils or any other thing you have at home) and blind test your smell against your opponent. The person who guesses most odors correctly wins.
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Crazy Day BrainstormYou brainstorm with your partner, competing to come up with crazy, perhaps scary things you want to do together. You try to come up with at least three really crazy/scary things from each of you. Then you decide on the safest way to do them, or the right rhythm to weave them into your life.
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EurekaAn activity to (1) gather values of a team; (2) reveal teammates' unconscious motives.The interviewer asks an innocuous question to beginālike: (a) what do you hope will happen in our team? (b) what kind of vibe do you hope we'll have as a team? (c) what energizes you, that you want to share with the team?When the subject answers, the interviewer asks followup questions. Here's where things get crafty. The intervie
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The Repetition GameBy Sandy Meisner. (Text from https://actingcoachscotland.co.uk/blog/repetition-beginners/)Repetition or the Repetition Exercise or Game was developed by Sandy Meisner in the USA to train actors to actively listen to each other and pay attention to their stage partners. Repetition is a foundation exercise in Practical Aesthetics, the approach to acting developed by David Mamet & WH Macy.Traditionally actors do not need to l
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Open Space TechnologyWelcome to Open Spaceā¦ look around, please, and see whoās here. Imagine that youāre sitting in a circle of friends, colleagues and perhaps some strangers, too. It might be just a dozen of you for a one-day working conversation, but perhaps itās 120 or even as many as 1200 gathered for a 2 1/2-day strategic conference. If itās just a few, we might be in your office conference room or a small hotel meeting place. If itās a very
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