Franca - Mirrory | Synaptic Glow

Psychologist & cognitive neuroscientist. Founder, Synaptic Glow. Cognitive agency, behaviour & olfaction, exploring when intention fails to govern action.

[Franca - Mirrory | Synaptic Glow @francescatul]

“I’ll do it later.” Such an elegant form of relief for the brain. The uncomfortable thing disappears from the present, while the story that you still intend to do it remains intact. Nothing has been abandoned. The problem has simply been handed to your future self. A short-term solution with a long-term cost. Relief now. Intention preserved. Action postponed.

[Franca - Mirrory | Synaptic Glow @francescatul]

I’m Franca. My background is in psychology and cognitive neuroscience. I write about the gap between intending to do something and actually doing it, and about the conditions that make that gap wider or smaller: attention, technology, other people, the sensory world. I’m building Synaptic Glow as a place to test some of that, not only to write about it.

[Franca - Mirrory | Synaptic Glow @francescatul]

Six hours unable to start. Twenty minutes left, and suddenly effective. We call that working better under pressure. Perhaps. What pressure removes is the luxury of negotiation. No more tomorrow, no more later, no more waiting until you feel ready. The task hasn’t changed. Your relationship to postponing it has.

[Franca - Mirrory | Synaptic Glow @francescatul]

Replying to an email might take two minutes. Starting it might mean the money, the school, the person, the decision, the possibility of failure. An entire domain sitting behind it. We measure tasks by how long they take, then wonder why something so small can be avoided for days. Task size is not task meaning. The task can be small. What it represents isn’t.