How to be rational: 6 new secrets of time management from Dan Ariely

It is difficult to work rationally. Sometimes it seems that the world has gone mad . Sometimes you see no point in anything. And sometimes everything around looks like a conspiracy. If you look better, this is to some extent true. Dan Ariely is the king of irrational behavior. Not in the sense that he is more unwise than you or we. He simply conducted an impressive amount of research on this topic. And ready to share information!

Dan is a behavioral economist at Duke University and, according to the New York Times, the most popular author who has written three remarkable books:
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1. Predictable irrationality: the hidden forces that shape our decisions ^★
2. The potential for irrationality: unexpected benefits of neglecting logic ^★
3. (Honest) truth about dishonesty: how we lie to everyone, especially to ourselves ^★

Recently, he turned his attention to our unreasonableness in the use of time. He helped create a new intelligent Timeful calendar application.

What is especially valuable is that the data from Timeful helps to find out about things that work for productivity, or do not.
The author of the article called Dan to find out what he can tell about the optimization of the distribution of time and how to be rational and do more.

1) The world works against you

This is not a conspiracy theory and a foil cap is not needed at all. We spend most of our time interacting with the external environment, which has its own interests.

Billboards and TV ads provoke purchases. Links on the Internet are asked to click on them. Notifications on the smartphone and beckon.

The disadvantage of our time lies in the constant aggressive sounding of inviting songs performed by the Sirens lurking around us.

Dan:

The world does not have a permanent beneficial effect on us. Imagine that you are walking down the street, and every store is trying to extract money from you right now. You have a phone in your pocket, and each application wants to receive a portion of attention immediately. Many of the entities around us really yearn for us to be wrong in their favor. Therefore, living in the world is becoming increasingly difficult.

If you followed every direction that comes in today, you would be ruined, fattened, and completely confused.

It looks as if we are surrounded by fraudsters who plot scheming: thieves of our time, attention, performance.

And what helps pickpockets to seize someone else's property? Your absentmindedness.

Dan:

I have a magician friend who steals from people during his show. He says that at the beginning of his career, he usually had to push people to distract them. He hit them lightly, they lost concentration, and this allowed him to seize them for hours. Now he realized that to deprive people of the opportunity to concentrate can be simply asking them questions.

In the modern world, the absence of a plan, goals, or system is dangerous because circumstances do not respect neutrality.

So what then is the first step towards performance ?

2) Control your environment or it will control you

Of course, we cannot influence external conditions everywhere, but it is available to us more often than we are used to thinking.

If you get rid of absentmindedness and start a diary, you will see that the situation has become more favorable for productivity.

Dan:

According to one of the greatest lessons of sociology of the last 40 years, the environment matters. If you go to the buffet and it is equipped in one way, you will be eating one meal. And if it is organized differently, you will try completely different foods. It seems to us that we make decisions on our own, but external conditions have a huge impact on us. Therefore, we must think about how to change them.

What unites, according to the study, the most effective programmers?
No experience, no salary and no time spent on the project.
Their employers have created an environment that does not distract from work.

From the book Silence: the Power of Introverts in a World Unable to Silence:

... leaders in most cases work in companies that provide their employees with maximum privacy, personal space, control over the physical environment and protection from interference.

Research shows that distraction makes us stupid.

Your environment should make the right things easy to do and complicate everything that is superfluous.

What happened when Google put M & M`s in containers and not left them in an open container? For a month, their consumption decreased by 3 million units.

Dan:

Recently, Google conducted an experiment. Usually, M & M`s in their New York office are in baskets. They poured them into bowls with lids. It was not difficult to open the containers, but this reduced the consumption of M & M`s in the office of New York by 3 million per month.

So you need to manage your environment. How to keep track of your diary?

3) Record all affairs

The insecurity of our brains is known to everyone, but we still constantly trust them, trying to memorize something and doing tasks in our mind. This is bad.

What research from the Timeful application told Dan?

1. Most people do not fix what they need to do.
2. When you have recorded something, you will most likely do it.

If something is really important, write it down. Reminders, notes and diaries are good tools.

Stanford professor Jennifer Aaker points out a study demonstrating that a diary can make you happier:

... there is often a difference between how people, according to them, want to spend their time, and their real actions ... one day determine the actions and people with whom you want to go more often, and the need to consider the hours will become critical.

When you put something on the schedule, you will most likely actually do it.

This is partly due to the fact that you no longer need to decide whether to do this, because everything was thought out beforehand.

So you write down everything you need to do. Should I perform tasks strictly on the list? It is absolutely not necessary.

4) The meaning of when and what you do

Hours in days were never equal. What did Dan’s timeful find out about the most productive time?
You have 2–2.5 hours of maximum activity per day, starting a couple of hours after waking up.

Dan:

... it turns out that most people are productive in the first two hours of the morning. Not immediately after getting out of bed, but for example, if you get up at 7, you will be as productive as possible from 8.00 to 10:30.

During these two hours you should work on the most difficult tasks to be understood. Big projects. Tasks that really push things ahead.

But what, as Dan found out, is the majority of people engaged in this time span?

Email and Facebook.

You need to keep this gap for important matters. Mark this part of your day as “inviolable time”.
Results summarized by Dan, coincide with data from another study, which also says: 2.5 to 4 hours after waking up is the time when your brain is most intelligent.

Studies show that attention span, memory, the ability to think clearly and learn can vary between 15 and 30% throughout the day. Most of us are in better shape during the first two and a half hours of waking up.

During our interview, an expert on willpower, Roy Baumeister, noted that early morning is also the time when you are most disciplined.

The later people wake up, the more problems arise with self-control. Many troubles occur in the evening. Diets are broken during the dinner, and not at breakfast or in the middle of the morning. Impulsive crimes are committed after midnight.

When studying geniuses, it turned out that most of them created their best work in the morning.

So, you must form your environment and keep the hours of maximum activity. And what should you avoid?

5) Four horseman Apocalypse performance

Dan's research found 4 things - time killers:

1) Meetings

We all know that meetings steal time and breed like rabbits. Where is the exit?
Mark your work time in the diary. Are you working on a presentation? Give it a watch.

If at this time someone arranges a meeting, you can say that this is contrary to your plans. The way it is. Your work matters.

The schedule should contain entries about everything that needs to be done, and not just about wedging-in appointments and calls.

2) Email

Many people spend too much time in their mailboxes instead of doing something really valuable.
Here's how to prevent mail from taking over your life .

3) Multitasking

Get rid of distraction and only do one task at a time. Without exception, multitasking reduces productivity.

4) “Structured procrastination”

What is structured procrastination? This is the fulfillment of small tasks, giving us the feeling of moving forward, instead of deep work, which really contributes to progress.

Dan:

So, creating to-do lists and deleting items as they are completed is an example of this. Since such tasks are easy to calculate, they give us the feeling that we have achieved something. But real achievements take time. Progress is not always linear. Large projects never bring immediate satisfaction. Really difficult things do not give us the same feeling of instant pleasure, but they give us a real feeling of victory and progress when we complete the work on them. But I do not think that there are many.

Avoid these fours and you will see a 20/80-style performance leap.

So you are progressing. You are more productive during the day. But we all get tired and sometimes miss. What is better to do at such moments?

6) No, you do not need to be distracted by checking mail

You tell yourself that it’s worth going to the post office to recuperate and work better after that. The problem is that this is not true.

Immersion in work and “diving out” of it takes time. The cost of switching between classes is to reduce the success of the activity.

Dan:

People think that checking email will refresh them. This is not true. If you want to freshen up, close your eyes, meditate, breathe deeply or think about something important. The reality is that the only correct way to accomplish tasks is to close the mail and focus on what you do.

Indeed, research has shown that frequent mail checking can temporarily reduce your intelligence level more than drug use.

Constant mail calls reduce your mental abilities by an average of 10 IQ points. For men, this effect is three times more destructive than smoking marijuana.

From the book: “Your brain is at work: strategies for overcoming distraction, restoring concentration and vigorous activity throughout the day”:

A study at the University of London found that consistent use of mail and text messages reduces mental abilities by an average of 10 points during an IQ test. For women, this figure is 5 points, and for men - 15. A sleepless night has a similar effect. For men, it affects three times stronger than the use of marijuana.

Some of you will say, “But I must check the mail!” Yes, they should. But not so often.

As Cal Newport writes: “Surface activity protects you from being fired. Deep work helps to achieve promotion. ”

And email is the smallest of the lessons. We sent a man to the moon without an electronica. And the post office can wait while you are busy with important things.

So Dan gave us a lot of advice. How do we combine all this and become more rational?

Results

Dan's tips:
1. The world is not set to help you achieve your long-term goals. Passivity will not produce the desired result.
2. Watch what surrounds you, or the environment will control you. Optimize your workspace according to what you need to do.
3. Write down what needs to be done in the diary. You are more likely to do what is fixed on paper.
4. You have two hours of maximum performance, usually they fall in the early morning. Take care of this time and use it wisely.
5. Meetings, emails, multitasking and structured procrastination are the main time killers.
6. No, you do not need a break to check mail. Changing classes reduces efficiency, as it requires a switch of thinking. The more often you do this, the lower your productivity will be (you can read about 7 fantastic historical ways to achieve amazing productivity here ).

You do not need to count every minute. You should not be killed over lost seconds. This is unlikely to improve the situation.
There are no infallible ones among us. Here is what Dan says about the balance of work and personal life:

I fight for it every day. We are busy with this interview, and today is Saturday.
So no one is perfect. But Dan's advice will help us become more adept at allocating our time.

PS We recommend another article on the topic - Formula for failure: how to stop sabotage yourself .

Translated by Vyacheslav Davidenko, founder of MBA Consult .