Anticipatory Processing
Summary
Anticipatory processing is an approach where you think about potential outcomes while current actions are still resolving, creating a continuous cycle of action and preparation. While waiting for an action (such as making a change during a production incident or asking an AI coding assistant to write code), consider the outcomes so that once the action resolves, you’re able to immediately take the next action, maximizing Wait Time Utilization.
Description
This cognitive technique transforms traditionally passive waiting periods into active planning opportunities, allowing you to build mental decision trees, prepare responses to various scenarios, and maintain momentum throughout complex workflows. By running these parallel mental processes, you can dramatically reduce overall response time without sacrificing thoroughness, creating a significant advantage in time-sensitive situations like incident response or iterative development with AI tools. The key benefit isn't just thinking faster, but thinking ahead, effectively pipelining your cognitive processes similar to how modern computer architectures optimize instruction execution. Lastly, this keeps you in a flow state even when that flow is broken up by waiting periods.
Key Benefits
Reduces effective response time without sacrificing thoroughness
Enables continuous flow of thought and action
Prevents bottlenecks in decision-making processes
Increases cognitive efficiency in fast-paced environments
Applications
SaaS incident response: Planning resolution paths while gathering telemetry data
AI-assisted development: Evaluating output and formulating next prompts while AI generates solutions
Project management: Preparing for multiple decision branches while awaiting stakeholder input
Leadership: Maintaining strategic awareness while handling tactical issues
