 First, against the often implicitly accepted model of practical reasoning as a matter of first surveying surrounding circumstances, then assessing them, and then deciding what new action to initiate next, one largely attends to what one is already in the middle of doing, clarifying how it has gone hitherto, with an eye to a continuation.  The action does not commence only after the survey and assessment, and consequently the primary object of attention turns out to be the action already in progress.  Here the model is an author rereading his half-written book or paper, wondering how to complete his not-fully-formed train of thought – the train of thought he is in the middle of, rather than about to kick off – or perhaps that author reviewing his rough drafts.  Because understanding of what one is doing does not come all at once but gradually, as one proceeds with one’s course of action, the ability to survey and assess all the considerations relevant to a decision up front, as presupposed by the competing model, will not normally be in place when anything that is itself significant is at stake.