Sharing what I have learned from what I have read: A blog by Joe Abittan
In Thinking Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman comments on research studying people's mood and cognitive performance. He writes the following about how we think when we are in a good mood, "when in a good mood, people become more intuitive and more creative but also less vigilant and more prone to logical errors." We … Continue reading Mood, Creativity, & Cognitive Errors
"The evidence is persuasive," writes Daniel Kahneman in Thinking Fast and Slow, "activities that impose high demands on System 2 require self-control, and the exertion of self-control is depleting and unpleasant. Unlike cognitive load, ego depletion is at least in part a loss of motivation." Yesterday I wrote about our misconceptions regarding individual self-control. … Continue reading Self-Control Depletion, Continued
A little while back I wrote a blog post centered around a quote from Cal Newport, "You have a finite amount of willpower that becomes depleted as you use it." The idea is that our brains get tired, and as they get tired, they become worse at practicing self control. When you are exhausted, … Continue reading Limited Effort
In the world of sports, I have always enjoyed the saying that someone is so good at something they make it look easy. While I usually hear the saying in relation to physical activity, it also extends to other generally challenging activities – Kobe made the fadeaway jumper look easy, Tyler Cowen makes blogging look … Continue reading Skill Versus Effort
"Wherever you direct your gaze, you will meet with something that might stand out from the rest, if the context in which you read it were not equally notable," writes Seneca in Letters From a Stoic. Quite a while back I listened to a podcast interview with the founder of a music streaming service … Continue reading Stimuli, Attention, and What We Notice
Recently, Tyler Cowen released a podcast interview he did with Annie Duke, someone I remember from the days when my brother watched tournaments for the World Series of Poker. A line from the interview really stood out to me and is something I think about in my life all the time, but haven't stated as eloquently … Continue reading Focus on Process
In the knowledge economy, many of us have a thousand things we could do with our time at any given moment. Email (as I have written about previously) is always an available option to us, we usually have a lot of reports we could work on, and there is always another meeting we could be … Continue reading Deciding Which Tasks to Own
My last post was about training the brain to become less dependent on continuous novelty and to become better at concentrated focus. Training the brain for deep work requires that we wean ourselves from distractions and in some senses rewire our brains to be less dependent on distracting stimuli. Cal Newport describes exactly what … Continue reading Constant Task Switching
"Once you're wired for distraction, you crave it," writes Cal Newport in his book Deep Work. Our technology today is not built nor designed to provide us with the best space for focus, it is not intended to provide us the maximum possible value, and it is not sold to us to truly enhance … Continue reading Wired for Distraction
What do you do at the end of your work day? Do you just haphazardly save and close out of anything that you happen to be working on during the last 10 minutes of work? Do you glance back through your email one last time and shoot off a couple emails to make sure you … Continue reading Shutdown Rituals