The Default Trap: Get a Second Opinion on What You Stopped Questioning

We had a leaking faucet in our en suite bathroom, and the water was making its way down into the cold room where we keep our freezers and canned goods. The pull thing that switches the water to the shower has a small circular ring inside it, and ours had stretched into an oval, so the seal wasn't sealing anymore and the back pressure was pushing water into the wall and down through the floor. Andrew took it apart and confirmed we needed a new faucet, but I spent hours researching, since the bathroom hadn't been done that long ago and replacing a whole fixture over a seal felt wrong. My default assumption was that there had to be a fix. I sent Gemini a picture and description asking how to fix it, and it confirmed what Andrew already had: the seal had failed and wasn't fixable. What I didn't expect was that a replacement wouldn't cost nearly what I'd assumed. I went in asking how I fix this and came out with a completely different answer.Defaults aren't just habits, they're assumptions we stopped questioning, the entryway scuff marks you stopped seeing six months ago. The most useful thing a tool did for me this week wasn't hand me a new idea, it was challenge my thinking and hand back a clearer version of what was already in front of me. This week's Tessera: Pick one thing you've been looking at the same way for too long, a project, a routine, a tool, a plan, and ask for a second opinion, adding the five words "flag any assumptions I've made" to whatever you ask.Read the companion article at https://tesseros.com/tessory-e8-second-opinionTimestamps:00:36 Invisible defaults01:27 The leaking faucet assumption03:37 A shift in meal planning05:43 Upgrading AI defaults at work08:29 The Time Mosaic and this week's challenge