Working aimlessly

Marketers use this to nudge us towards buying a certain product or service, providing us with a goal that is almost within our grasp.

Example: When enrolled in a buy ten get one free coffee program, the person who has just one coffee to complete ten, is motivated to buy it as the free coffee is now imminent.

Studies show that if a person is offered a bonus reward or push, he or she is more likely to complete the goal as he has been provided with a further incentive and help to reach a stage where his reward is within his sights.

Late bloomers don't realize they're good at something until they're about fifty. It's not that they start late; It's that they simply aren't much good until late in their careers.

Young Cézanne had rare endowments, but he couldn't draw. Cézanne required decades of practicing before he could master his ability.

Prodigies like Picasso, who created a masterpiece at age twenty, tend to be "conceptual" in the sense that they start with a clear idea of where they want to go, and then accomplish it. Picasso once said that he could hardly understand the importance given to the word 'research.'

But late bloomers tend to work the other way around. Their goals are imprecise and their procedure experimental. They build their skills gradually throughout their careers, improving slowly over long periods.

Usually when we're imagining the future, we always include in our visions about dealing with problems like poverty, climate change or cancer some techno-utopia solution (with all sorts of new technologies). And there is nothing wrong with that, but we should stop seeing the future in just this one way.

Move from Future to Futures and open yourself up to considering all kinds of possible scenarios and all kinds of solutions.

Telos comes from the Greek language, and it means “ultimate aim” or “ultimate purpose.” This call for the process of asking yourself one question: “To what end?”

As we try to solve a particular problem, we also should think about what will come after we solve it.

• Before video-chat and long-distance phone calls, written correspondence was used to exchange meaningful information. The goal was to write about the most important things that had happened since the last letter.
• Although the telephone was invented in the mid-19th century, it was only used for long-distance relationships in the 1970s, when the cost of phoning for pleasure instead of just business became affordable.
• The next major development in romantic communication was the internet. Email, instant messaging, and video-chatting were affordable for couples to share even the smallest details.
• Many couples today do "background Skype" where everyday living comes to the surface and add to a level of intimacy.

In the past, couples were more likely to accommodate only one partner's job - mostly the man's. But today, couples have dual-incomes, are well educated, professionally minded, and pursuing careers in separate places. It is contributing to the rise in long-distance relationships.

The pressure to live apart for work is worse for younger couples who are still establishing careers.

Imagine recording decision-makers' solutions to a competitive-strategy problem using four categories:

1. Now-I-know
2. I-already-know
3. I-don't-know
4. I-guessed

The Now-I-know and the I-already-know are very confident while I-do don't-know and the I-guessed are unsure. The Now-I-know and the I-don't-know are slow in making a strategy-decision while the I-already-know and the I-guessed are fast at making a decision.

A database of business executives, consultants, professors, and students was given the same unfamiliar pricing-strategy problem.

• Generally, the I-already-knows and the Now-I-Knows tend to be older males.
• The I-don't-knows tend to be somewhat younger.
• Females make up over half of the I-don't-knows.
• The best performing group was the I-don't-knows.
• The overconfident I-already-knows had strategies that would not work. Not because they were incompetent, but because they were overconfident.

Enabling may accidentally happen when you are trying to help, but after an extended period, you realise that you are really helping.

• Cleaning up after someone is one form of enabling behavior and includes any way of protecting the person from the negative consequences of their own behavior.
• A partner lies to his in-laws about his wife's drug problem to protect her from embarrassment.
• A sibling pays his brother's rent because he regularly loses his money to gambling.

It might be okay if it happened once, but if these "rescues" happen repeatedly, they don't get to learn from the cause-and-effect pattern of their behaviors.

• Our loved ones often come to us in a moment of crisis. They're losing their job or need to pay someone back. We sometimes feel we have to give money or bail them out in some form. But after a time or two, you become the consistent rescuer while they continue in their unaccountable ways.
• Boundaries can be used to stop the cycle, but not letting those boundaries slip is hard. If you put your foot down on not loaning money, don't give in. The person you're trying to help will ultimately feel more secure if they know you keep your word. You're also a good role model for consistent behavior.

• Though employees are happy to see the demise of daily commutes and parking hassles, they are finding out that there is no work-life balance at home.
• Most workers live in apartments that aren’t suitable for 8 to 10 hours of work every day, as it was never designed to be a full-fledged office.
• Many employees would want to get back to offices as soon as possible due to social and mental issues, like the feeling of loneliness at home.

Monitoring software that checks time spent on different applications, chat response time, and keystroke recording is now in great demand.

HR departments worldwide are fueling the use of technology to have a way to control the employees that are now no longer in the office.

Pharmaceuticals are playing a major role in the deterioration of mental health among young people. There is a link between teen suicidal thinking and antidepressant use, along with a link being seen in actual suicides among the young and the use of opioids in their families.

Across age groups, social media is potentially hazardous, with its tendency to amplify the social divide.

There is a strong relationship between anxiety/depression and the use of smartphones, particularly social media usage among kids, though the data also seem to show the positive effects of staying connected with their peers. Online distractions also make youngsters give up their offline life, leading to isolation and further depression.