"The people who are most successful at learning—those who are able to digest the data surrounding them, who absorb insights embedded in their experiences and take advantage of information flowing past—are the ones who know how to use disfluency to their advantage. They transform what life throws at them, rather than just taking it as it comes. They know the best lessons are those that force us to do something and to manipulate information. They take data and transform it into experiments whenever they can. "

In the past two decades, the amount of information present in our daily lives has skyrocketed. Unfortunately, however, our ability to learn from information hasn’t necessarily kept pace with its proliferation.In theory, the ongoing explosion in information should make the right answers more obvious. In practice, though, being surrounded by data often makes it harder to decide. This inability to take advantage of data as it becomes more plentiful is called “information blindness.”

Information Blindness

Cognitive tunneling can cause people to become overly focused on whatever is directly in front of their eyes or become preoccupied with immediate tasks. It’s what keeps someone glued to their smartphone as the kids wail or pedestrians swerve around them on the sidewalk.Once in a cognitive tunnel, we lose our ability to direct our focus. Instead, we latch on to the easiest and most obvious stimulus, often at the cost of common sense.

Cognitive Tunneling

<ul><li>Internal locus of control translates into our belief that we can influence our destiny through the choices we make; it has been linked with academic success, higher self-motivation and social maturity, lower incidences of stress and depression, and a longer life span. This is a skill that can be learned.</li><li>Having an external locus means believing that our life is primarily influenced by events outside our control; it is correlated with higher levels of stress because an individual perceives the situation as beyond his or her coping abilities.</li></ul>

Internal Vs External Locus Of Control

We’re more likely to recognize discoveries hidden in our own experiences when necessity pushes us, when panic or frustrations cause us to throw old ideas into new settings.<ul><li>The Post-it note was invented by a chemical engineer who, frustrated by bookmarks falling out of his church hymnal, decided to use a new adhesive to make them stay put.</li><li>Cellophane was developed by an exasperated chemist looking for a way to protect tablecloths from wine spills.</li><li>Infant formula was created, in part, by an exhausted father who suspended vegetable nutrients in powder so he could feed his crying child.</li></ul>

The Concept of "Creative Desperation"

“Our brains crave reducing things to two or three options. So when we’re faced with a lot of information, we start automatically arranging it into mental folders and subfolders and sub subfolders. This ability to digest large amounts of information by breaking it into smaller pieces is how our brains turn information into knowledge. We learn which facts or lessons to apply in a given situation by learning which folders to consult."

<ul><li>The “star” model: executives hire from elite universities or other successful companies and give employees huge amounts of autonomy.</li><li>The “engineering” model: engineers, as a group, hold the most sway.</li><li>The “bureaucracies”: Executives write extensive job descriptions, organizational charts, and employee handbooks.</li><li>The “autocracies”: the rules, job descriptions, and organizational charts ultimately point to the desires and goals of one person, usually the founder or CEO.</li><li>The “commitment” model: a throwback to an age when people happily worked for one company their entire life.</li></ul>

Five Types Of Company Cultures

"Every choice we make in life is an experiment. Every day offers fresh opportunities to find better decision-making frames. We live in a time when data is more plentiful, cheaper to analyze, and easier to translate into action than ever before. Smartphones, websites, digital databases, and apps put information at our fingertips. But it only becomes useful if we know how to make sense of it."

This system for making decisions allows us to define our dilemmas, collect data, brainstorm solutions, debate alternative approaches, and conduct iterative experiments.This approach to problem-solving removes the emotion so we can view our problems more objectively.

Decision-Making Systems: The Engineering Design Process

Motivation is a skill that can be learned. People can get better at self-motivation if they practice the right way. The trick is realizing that a condition for motivation to develop is believing we have authority over our actions and surroundings.To motivate ourselves, we must feel like we are in control. One way to prove to ourselves that we are in control is by making decisions.

Self-Motivation: Feeling In Control By Making Decisions

Reactive thinking is how we build habits, and it’s why to-do lists and calendar alerts are so helpful: Rather than needing to decide what to do next, we can take advantage of our reactive instincts and automatically proceed.But the downside of reactive thinking is that habits and reactions can become so automatic they overpower our judgment. Once our motivation is outsourced, we simply react.

Reactive Thinking: How We Allocate Our Attention

Psychological safety is a "shared belief, held by members of a team, that a group is a safe place for taking risks. It is a sense of confidence that the team will not embarrass, reject, or punish someone for speaking up.”(Amy Edmondson, 1999)This characterizes a working environment filled with trust and mutual respect in which people are comfortable being themselves.

Psychological Safety

The need for cognitive closure, in many settings, can be a great strength. An instinct to make a judgment and then stick with it stops the needless second-guessing and prolonged debate. It feels productive. It feels like progress.But there are risks associated with a high need for closure: when people begin craving the emotional satisfaction that comes from making a decision, they are more likely to make hasty decisions and less likely to reconsider an unwise choice.

Our Need For Cognitive Closure

At the core of Bayes’ rule is a principle: Even if we have very little data, we can still forecast the future by making assumptions and then skewing them based on what we observe about the world.Humans are astoundingly good Bayesian predictors, even if we’re unaware of it. Humans can make these kinds of calculations without having to think about them very hard. Sometimes, however, we make mistakes.

Bayesian Thinking

Google spent 2 years and enormous amounts of resources studying over 180 teams to figure out the answer to their question: What makes a team effective?Their findings - five key norms: Teams need to believe that their work is important. Teams need to feel their work is personally meaningful. Teams need clear goals and defined roles. Team members need to know they can depend on one another. But, most important, teams need psychological safety.

Understand Team Effectiveness: Google's Project Aristotle

Make sure you are exposed to a full spectrum of experiences.We all have a natural tendency to be optimistic, to ignore our mistakes and forget others’ tiny errors. But making good predictions relies on realistic assumptions, and those are based on our experiences. If we pay attention only to good news, we’re handicapping ourselves

How To Get The Right Assumptions

The choices that are most powerful in generating motivation convince us we’re in control and endow our actions with larger meaning.An internal locus of control emerges when we develop a mental habit of transforming chores into meaningful choices, when we assert that we have authority over our lives.

Choices That Influence Our Motivation

Here is an example of a flowchart to use when setting a goal:WHAT IS YOUR STRETCH GOAL?To run a marathonWHAT IS A SPECIFIC SUB-GOAL?Run seven miles without stoppingHOW WILL YOU MEASURE SUCCESS?Twice around the park, no walkingIS THIS ACHIEVABLE?Yes, if I run three miles a week.IS THIS REALISTIC?Yes, if I wake up early on Monday, Wednesday, and FridayWHAT IS YOUR TIMELINE?Run three miles this week, four miles next week, five miles…

The Goal-Setting Flow Chart

Leave work feeling satisfied with what you’ve accomplished, with help of a few “productivity hacks”.

books

Books

problemsolving

Problem Solving

health

Health

personaldevelopment

Personal Development

Productivity Hacks

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of The Power of Habit comes a fascinating book that explores the science of productivity, and why managing how you think is more important than what you think—with an appendix of real-world lessons to apply to your life. At the core of Smarter Faster Better are eight key productivity concepts—from motivation and goal setting to focus and decision making—that explain why some people and companies get so much done. Drawing on the latest findings in neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics—as well as the experiences of CEOs, educational reformers, four-star generals, FBI agents, airplane pilots, and Broadway songwriters—this painstakingly researched book explains that the most productive people, companies, and organizations don’t merely act differently. They view the world, and their choices, in profoundly different ways. A young woman drops out of a PhD program and starts playing poker. By training herself to envision contradictory futures, she learns to anticipate her opponents’ missteps—and becomes one of the most successful players in the world. A group of data scientists at Google embark on a four-year study of how the best teams function, and find that how a group interacts is more important than who is in the group—a principle, it turns out, that also helps explain why Saturday Night Live became a hit. A Marine Corps general, faced with low morale among recruits, reimagines boot camp—and discovers that instilling a “bias toward action” can turn even the most directionless teenagers into self-motivating achievers. The filmmakers behind Disney’s Frozen are nearly out of time and on the brink of catastrophe—until they shake up their team in just the right way, spurring a creative breakthrough that leads to one of the highest-grossing movies of all time. What do these people have in common? They know that productivity relies on making certain choices. The way we frame our daily decisions; the big ambitions we embrace and the easy goals we ignore; the cultures we establish as leaders to drive innovation; the way we interact with data: These are the things that separate the merely busy from the genuinely productive. In The Power of Habit, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Charles Duhigg explained why we do what we do. In Smarter Faster Better, he applies the same relentless curiosity, deep reporting, and rich storytelling to explain how we can improve at the things we do. It’s a groundbreaking exploration of the science of productivity, one that can help anyone learn to succeed with less stress and struggle, and to get more done without sacrificing what we care about most—to become smarter, faster, and better at everything we do.

motivationandinspiration

Motivation & Inspiration

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The author of The Power of Habit and “master of the life hack” (GQ) explores the fascinating science of productivity and offers real-world takeaways to apply your life, whether you’re chasing peak productivity or simply trying to get back on track. “Duhigg melds cutting-edge science, deep reporting, and wide-ranging stories to give us a fuller, more human way of thinking about how productivity actually happens.”—Susan Cain, author of Quiet   In The Power of Habit, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Charles Duhigg explained why we do what we do. In Smarter Faster Better, he applies the same relentless curiosity and rich storytelling to how we can improve at the things we do.    At the core of Smarter Faster Better are eight key concepts—from motivation and goal setting to focus and decision making—that explain why some people and companies get so much done. Drawing on the latest findings in neuroscience, psychology, and behavioral economics—as well as the experiences of CEOs, educational reformers, four-star generals, FBI agents, airplane pilots, and Broadway songwriters—this book reveals that the most productive people, companies, and organizations don’t merely act differently. They view the world, and their choices, in profoundly different ways.   Smarter Faster Better is a story-filled exploration of the science of productivity, one that can help us learn to succeed with less stress and struggle—and become smarter, faster, and better at everything we do.

Charles Duhigg is an American journalist and non-fiction author. He was a reporter for The New York Times, currently writes for The New Yorker Magazine and is the author of two books on habits and productivity, titled The Power of Habit: Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business and Smarter Faster Better.

Cognitive Tunneling

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