> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.amandamashburn.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

# Core Principles (PLACEHOLDER)

> A personal philosophy database – a collection of guiding statements that inform how you make decisions, prioritize, and live.

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  Article coming soon. The preview below outlines what will be covered when complete.
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## What to expect

A space to articulate and reference your personal value system. The Core Principles collection is a database of guiding statements – principles, aphorisms, and mental models – each with room to elaborate on the reasoning and context behind it. It's a living document of how you've decided to operate.

## What will be covered

**What a principle is – and isn't**. A principle is not a vague aspiration. It's a statement precise enough to apply to a specific decision. We'll cover how to write principles in a form that's useful: imperative, actionable, and specific enough to test against a real situation.

**How this fits alongside Knowledge Bank and Opinion Bank**. The three collections represent a deliberate split: what you know (Knowledge Bank), what you think (Opinion Bank), and what you believe (Core Principles). Understanding the difference between a fact, an opinion, and a value is one of the clearest thinking skills you can develop – and building all three collections forces you to practice it.

**How principles crystallize**. Principles rarely arrive fully formed. They emerge from experience, reading, hard decisions, and reflection. We'll cover how to capture them in the moment and how to refine them over time.

**Using principles as a decision reference**. The value of writing principles down is that you can return to them. We'll cover how to build the habit of consulting your principles when you're facing trade-offs or evaluating commitments.

![Principles](https://pub-2d2377678ed641f78799466e355c3c0e.r2.dev/core_principles.png)

*Fig. 01 – A peek into my personal Core Principles database in Notion.*

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Last update: 2026.04.26

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