Clear Your Mind

Over at The New York Times, Moshe Bar on the benefits of a clear mind:

Recently, I discovered how much we overlook, not just about the world, but also about the full potential of our inner life, when our mind is cluttered. In a study published in this month’s Psychological Science, the graduate student Shira Baror and I demonstrate that the capacity for original and creative thinking is markedly stymied by stray thoughts, obsessive ruminations and other forms of “mental load.” Many psychologists assume that the mind, left to its own devices, is inclined to follow a well-worn path of familiar associations. But our findings suggest that innovative thinking, not routine ideation, is our default cognitive mode when our minds are clear.

I always love the stories about how Steve Jobs would go on walks a lot, either to negotiate deals with other people or just by himself.

I do it a lot myself here in San Francisco, but I think the habit got formed in my 10+ years living in Manhattan because in New York, you have to walk everywhere (why wouldn’t you want to?).

It’s amazing the ideas that pop in my head when I’m walking. If you don’t do it, you should give it a try.

Categories:

Pyschology

Grit

David Brooks on grit:

Success is about being passionately good at one or two things, but students who want to get close to that 4.0 have to be prudentially balanced about every subject. In life we want independent thinking and risk-taking, but the G.P.A. system encourages students to be deferential and risk averse, giving their teachers what they want.

Creative people are good at asking new questions, but the G.P.A. rewards those who can answer other people’s questions. The modern economy rewards those who can think in ways computers can’t, but the G.P.A. rewards people who can grind away at mental tasks they find boring. People are happiest when motivated intrinsically, but the G.P.A. is the mother of all extrinsic motivations.

He also mentions Angela Duckworth’s new book, Grit.

Categories:

Pyschology

No One is Going to Steal Your Idea

Tony Larsson on why you shouldn’t worry about identity theft (via Life Hacker):

Bringing a product to market takes a huge investment of time, energy and money. This means that if a person wanted to capitalize on your idea, they would need to stop current endeavors and refocus their life on this new task.

It is highly unlikely that the person you are sharing your idea with would want to do that. Also the type of person that would completely change their life course on a whim, probably lacks the focus necessary for executing the idea in the first place.

Most people don’t execute their great ideas. Most of the time peoples’ ideas turn out to be shit anyway.

Actually, many of ideas of successful people start out crappy as well. The difference is the successful person has the grit and drive to iterate on an idea until it becomes something great.

While I generally agree with Larsson, I would be careful about who you share your great ideas with if you live in Silicon Valley or San Francisco. Don’t get what I call, “Zuckerberg’d”.

Categories:

Process, Product, Pyschology

McGregor Inside Your Head

Over at The 42, Paul Dollery on Conor McGregor’s 2012 fight with Dave Hill:

Since his subsequent rise to the top in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, much has been made of Conor McGregor’s apparent ability to break his opponents mentally before the fight has even begun. Not only is he an immensely talented fighter, but he’s an expert at mind games too.

One wonders how psychological warfare can become such a key component of a contest between two professional fighters. Regardless of whether mind games have been involved, the story always culminates with the athletes settling their differences by locking themselves in a cage and trading blows.

How do words and actions beforehand manage to make that a more intimidating prospect? Hill mentions that he felt “overwhelmed” by McGregor, both at the weigh-ins and during the fight, but how has McGregor managed to master that?

“I think it’s his inner confidence. He’s obviously such a confident bloke. I cleared my head after the weigh-ins but then during the fight he started talking again. He was saying: ‘I’ll go all day with you, you look soft, I’ll go five rounds if you need to.’ Then I started wondering if I should say something back, because I’d never been in that position before.

“So you start thinking of how you’re supposed to react and that kind of messes with your head as well. It’s definitely his confidence and that shows in the way he fights. He’s constantly moving forward, pushing you back and inflicting his game on you, so you don’t get a chance to inflict your game on him.”

Talk all you want about how much you may hate McGregor’s cockiness but he’s the champ and for good reason.

Categories:

Pyschology, Sports

The Majority Illusion

MIT Technology Review on the majority illusion:

One of the curious things about social networks is the way that some messages, pictures, or ideas can spread like wildfire while others that seem just as catchy or interesting barely register at all. The content itself cannot be the source of this difference. Instead, there must be some property of the network that changes to allow some ideas to spread but not others.

The definition:

This is the majority illusion—the local impression that a specific attribute is common when the global truth is entirely different.

And:

And the majority illusion can occur in all of them. “The effect is largest in the political blogs network, where as many as 60%–70% of nodes will have a majority active neighbours, even when only 20% of the nodes are active,” they say. In other words, the majority illusion can be used to trick the population into believing something that is not true.

That’s interesting work that immediately explains a number of interesting phenomena. For a start, it shows how some content can spread globally while other similar content does not—the key is to start with a small number of well-connected early adopters fooling the rest of the network into thinking it is common.

Stay vigilant.

via Noah Brier

“people that disagree with them are not stupid or evil”

On top of this knowledge, a liberal education should make certain habits of rationality second nature. Educated people should be able to express complex ideas in clear writing and speech. They should appreciate that objective knowledge is a precious commodity, and know how to distinguish vetted fact from superstition, rumor, and unexamined conventional wisdom. They should know how to reason logically and statistically, avoiding the fallacies and biases to which the untutored human mind is vulnerable. They should think causally rather than magically, and know what it takes to distinguish causation from correlation and coincidence. They should be acutely aware of human fallibility, most notably their own, and appreciate that people who disagree with them are not stupid or evil. Accordingly, they should appreciate the value of trying to change minds by persuasion rather than intimidation or demagoguery.

I believe (and believe I can persuade you) that the more deeply a society cultivates this knowledge and mindset, the more it will flourish.

—Steven Pinker

via Twitter

This is why we can’t have nice things

The Verge: As gas prices fall, Americans are buying thirstier cars:

Americans really like their SUVs. The problem is that trucks and SUVs cost more money to fill the tank than small, more fuel-efficient cars. As gas prices rise, vehicle buyers have a powerful incentive to value fuel efficiency higher.

That’s partly why the fuel efficiency of the average new vehicle in America rose from a little more than 20 mpg in 2007 to more than 25 mpg by 2014. But then, nearly in line with a dramatic drop in gas prices, Americans began buying bigger, thirstier cars again.

George Carlin? Still right.

Categories:

Pyschology

Behavioral Economics

The Economists Who Studied All-You-Can-Eat Buffets:

New research shows that paying that much for a buffet might actually make the food taste better. Three researchers did an all you can eat (AYCE) buffet field experiment to test whether the cost of an AYCE buffet affected how much diners enjoyed it. They conducted their research at an Italian AYCE buffet in New York, and over the course of two weeks 139 participants were either offered a flier for $8 buffet or a $4 buffet (both had the same food). Those who paid $8 rated the pizza 11 percent tastier than those who paid $4. Moreover, the latter group suffered from greater diminishing returns—each additional slice of pizza tasted worse than that of the $8 group.

Behavioral economics is so interesting. I was first drawn to it through Dan Ariely’s book, Predictably Irrational.

We like to believe we make decisions based on reason and logic, but so much of what we do is based on emotions and perceptions.

‘Shad the Season

Shkreli fraud arrest incites schadenfreude fest:

December is a festive month for most cultures around the globe, but yesterday was an especially jolly day on Twitter. People were mirthful and friendly and humorous, and all it took for them to bond together into such a united whole was the arrest of a despised pharmaceutical CEO by the name of Martin Shkreli.

I sometimes wish we could write headlines as caustic as this tweet. It gets right to the point: Shkreli is disliked because, firstly, his company cranked up the price of an HIV-treating drug by 5,500 percent (“price gouging”), and secondly, he’s remained completely unrepentant about it (“fuck-tard”). As to attention whoring, Shkreli has a habit of posting multi-hour live streams of himself doing not much at all, plus he splashed out $2 million to buy the only copy of Wu-Tang’s Once Upon a Time in Shaolin album.

You see that? No, you don’t, but I’m doing a little dance over here. 

Now Bill Murray, go get that Wu Tang album back

Facebook Is Not Happiness

The results were incredibly revealing – after just 7 days 88% of the group that left Facebook said they felt “happy” as opposed to 81% in the group still using the site. They also felt less angry, less lonely, less depressed, more decisive, more enthusiastic, and enjoyed their lives more. Ditching Facebook also appeared to reduce stress levels by as much as 55%. They’re some pretty strong results…

Study Finds Quitting Facebook Makes You Happier and Less Stressed

Yeah, what my brother says.

Categories:

Pyschology

Focusing Your Creative Energy

“‎The successful warrior is the average man, with laser-like focus.” 

— Bruce Lee

Early in my career as a web designer I had trouble focusing. I started off projects strong, but I had trouble following through on them.

Looking back at my various failed starts and poorly executed work, I think of Cyclops from the X-Men series (Jerry Seinfeld says all we men consider ourselves low-level superheroes). Cyclops can’t control the energy beams that come out of his eyes — they’re extremely powerful, but also destructive and a waste of energy. Think of a fire hydrant without a hose attached.

Cyclops needs the help of special eyewear to harness his optical energy so that he can point it in the direction he wants, with the intensity he wants.

Creativity is the same way for me and lot of other people: our brains are inundated with tons of great ideas, but without focus they go out scatter-shot and wind up as unfinished projects, or worse yet, never make it into a sketchbook. It ends up being all wasted energy. I was never diagnosed with ADD as a child, but I feel as though I easily could have been.

Focus is still something I have to work on daily, but the good news is I’ve figured out techniques and habits over the years to channel my creative energy in one direction at a time. 

Below is a list of tools and technics I use to help me achieve focus. They can turn you into a creative Cyclops too.

Get a Notebook and Pen

A notebook and pen are essential before you even attempt to address the other sections. I don’t care if it’s Field Notes, a Moleskine, Austin Kleon’s Steal Like An Artist Journal, or a handful of loose sheets folded in half and stapled together.

Always be ready to write things down where ever you are. If your brain works like mine and you don’t write things down you will forget them. I guarantee it.

Baby Steps

In the movie What About Bob? (YouTube), Bob Wiley (played by Bill Murray) has his first appointment with his new psychiatrist, Dr. Leo Marvin (played by Richard Dreyfus). Bob has a multi-phobic personality and gets anxiety attacks all the time, every day. Doctor Marvin suggests Bob read his book, Baby Steps, which advises people make small, reasonable goals for themselves in the pursuit of their bigger goals. He tells Bob, “For instance, when you leave this office, don’t think about everything you have to do in order to get out of the building, just think to what you must do to get out of this room, and when you get to the hall, deal with that hall…”

We can apply this thinking directly to projects. Break them down from macro to micro. If you have to design a website, don’t think about designing the whole website.

Write down the baby steps:

  1. Capture Client Goals
  2. Request Content/Assets
  3. Create Site Map
  4. Wireframe Key Pages
  5. Design Key Pages 6. …etc.

If you ever reach an step that seems daunting, break that step down into sub-steps.

All I can say about Baby Steps is mash potatoes and gravy.

Checklists

Checklists are very closely related to Baby Steps.

I use checklists specifically for client deliverables and requests. As soon as I complete a request from the client I check that item off my list.

I could write another whole post just on checklist methodologies. You can have project checklists, daily checklists, checklists for your checklists. The checklists are endless.

I recommend reading The Checklist Manifesto by Atul Gawande for a thorough understanding of the power of checklists.

Repeat It In An Email

Whenever I reach a milestone or deadline on a project I email the client (and any other relevant people like project managers, team members) and in the email, I echo back their list of requests I captured.

I do this for two reasons:

  1. it lets the client see you’re listening to them (clients usually don’t notice when you’re paying attention to them, but they hate when you don’t listen to them)

  2. it helps me be sure I didn’t miss anything on my checklist

Tell Siri to Remind You

Most of you have a portable computer on you at any moment. Use it. Maybe you’re at lunch away from your desk and you get a great idea for your project. As soon as you get that idea, pull out your phone and ask Siri or Google Now, “In 15 minutes remind me to change landing page hierarchy based on Jen’s idea…”

Steve Jobs liked to say the computer is “a bicycle for the mind.” I love this phrase. I love it so much I created a Kickstarter project around it. I love it because it’s true. Amplify your mental abilities and creativity with your mobile devices. 

These devices are literally waiting to help you accomplish more.

Now Go Cyclops the Hell Out of Some Projects

I’m going to stop here before I list more tips for creative focus. I think this is a good foundation of ideas you can start applying to your you work right now.

They’re open to changing as needed to match your particular workflow.

If there’s anything you should take away from this it’s the importance of defining your goals and objectives and then breaking them down into manageable, actionable pieces.

You have the creative energy, now unleash it with focus.

Categories:

Career, Pyschology

Move to iOS App for Android

Jacob Kastrenakes on the “reviews” of Apple’s ‘Move to iOS’ app for Android in the Google Play Store:

“I call on my fellow Android comrades to ensure this app gets drowned into oblivion with a 1-star rating never to be seen again on our cherished platform,” writes reviewer Segun Omojokun. And that’s basically what’s happening. The app primarily has 5-star and 1-star reviews right now, with the vast majority being the latter. There are currently a little over 800 reviews with a 5 star rating and over 3,300 reviews with a 1-star rating. The app’s overall rating currently sits at a 1.8.

We always hear about Apple fanbois, but shit, there are a lot of Android turds out there.

Categories:

Product, Pyschology

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Innate Talent

At Aeon, Sam Haselby asks, is artistic talent innate?:

In reality, artistic creativity is extremely widespread, maybe even a human universal. Most young children would be capable of achieving advanced proficiency in several different disciplines (athletic, visual, performative/musical, mathematical, verbal), and culture is replete with examples of folk art, ordinary inventiveness (Etsy, patent applications) and creativity in many different dimensions (cake-decorating, graffiti). What is less common, perhaps, is the drive and persistence (“grit,” in recent terminology) to develop those skills to a level that will lead others to identify the individual who possesses them as having exceptional talent. Those we think of as most creative – take a list of recent MacArthur Foundation fellowship winners, or of living artists whose work is held in the permanent collections of major museums like the Guggenheim or MOMA – are often no more creative than their less distinguished peers; they are more driven, or more gifted at envisioning and executing the shape of a career, or sometimes just more fortunate in a right-time-right-place sense.

Grit, man. You gotta have grit.

Categories:

Pyschology

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Broken Gold

I will never forget the first time I realized we were ripping people off. It’s the one and only time in my life that my older brother, a very gentle person by nature, swore at me. A pretty young woman, maybe twenty-three at the oldest, with one baby in her arm and another in a stroller, had been waiting about an hour, and I drew her number. When she came to the counter I was already sick to my stomach. She wanted to sell her diamond engagement ring and her gold wedding band. I had been taught the trick of how to buy gold. I could have weighed her ring on a gram scale and offered her that price immediately, but I knew you always bid on the biggest item first, because then the smaller offers for cheaper items feel less important, like small change.

—Clancy Martin, We Buy Broken Gold

Categories:

Pyschology