Position triggers at context transitions, not within stable contexts — transitions are perceptually distinct and are natural decision points

Why This Is a Rule

Context transitions — arriving at work, finishing a meeting, walking through a doorway, switching from one application to another — are moments of natural cognitive openness. During stable contexts, attention is absorbed by the current activity (deep in a document, engaged in conversation, focused on a task). Triggers placed within stable contexts compete against this absorption and are either ignored or experienced as interruptions. Triggers placed at transitions arrive when the previous context has released attention but the next context hasn't yet captured it.

This leverages what psychologists call the event boundary effect: the brain segments experience into episodes, and at the boundaries between episodes, there's a brief window of heightened alertness and reduced commitment to any particular action. Gabriel Radvansky's research on the "doorway effect" demonstrates this — walking through a doorway creates a memory boundary precisely because the brain is processing a context change. Triggers placed at these boundaries ride the natural attention-reset rather than fighting the current attention-capture.

The practical implication is that trigger timing matters as much as trigger design. A perfectly designed visual cue positioned during deep work will be ignored. The same cue positioned at the moment you stand up from your desk (transition from sitting to standing, from focused to mobile) catches attention naturally because no competing context holds it.

When This Fires

• When designing environmental triggers (Place trigger objects at eye level in routine paths — visibility beats proximity for reliable activation) and choosing when they should activate
• When existing triggers are being ignored despite good placement and visibility
• When planning habit chains (Place next-behavior materials where the current behavior ends — reduce transition friction to support automatic chaining) and identifying optimal trigger moments
• When a reminder or cue consistently fails to register — it may be competing against a stable context

Common Failure Mode

Placing triggers within deep-focus contexts: a notification to stretch during focused coding, a reminder to drink water during an engaging meeting, a visual cue to check posture while absorbed in reading. These triggers either go unnoticed (wasted) or break flow (harmful). The same triggers placed at the transition out of these activities (closing the IDE, leaving the meeting room, putting down the book) would catch the natural attention gap.

The Protocol

(1) Identify the behavior you want to trigger and map the target person's typical context transitions: arriving/leaving locations, starting/ending activities, switching tools/devices. (2) Choose the transition that's closest in time and space to where the triggered behavior should occur. (3) Place the trigger at the transition point, not before (too early, will be forgotten) or during the next stable context (competing for attention). (4) Test: does the trigger activate during a moment of cognitive openness, or does it interrupt an absorbed state? If the latter, move it to the nearest transition boundary. (5) Common high-quality transition points: entering a room, opening/closing a laptop, standing up from a chair, finishing a meal, ending a phone call — all moments where the previous context has released attention.