Thomas Edison, the driving force behind such innovations as the phonograph, the incandescent light bulb, and the motion picture camera, was also creative when it came to hiring new employees. As part of the screening process, he would invite the candidate to lunch and order soup for the table. If the candidate added salt to the soup before testing it, Edison had his answer.
Pre-seasoners, he reasoned, did not belong in his laboratory because they relied on knee-jerk assumptions and mindless habits, behaviors antithetical to innovation. Edison only hired those who tasted the soup before adding salt. For Edison, reliance on evidence at the lunch table was a litmus test for curiosity in the real world.
While one can debate the utility of the soup test in the hiring process as an indicator of an open mind, it is worth taking a closer look at other behaviors many of us perform without thinking.
These unconscious pairings could undoubtedly benefit from some conscious uncoupling. Another mindless tendency is the impulse to add something whenever we want to make a change. A study from the University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science found that we rarely look at a situation, object, or idea that needs improving and think to remove something as a solution. This is known as subtraction neglect.
We add meetings to solve problems at work, we add homework to improve academic performance, we add an ingredient to perfect a recipe, we add apps to boost efficiency, we add products to enhance our skin. Rarely do we consider how transformative the alternative—removing an element—could be. It’s only when encouraged to consider deletion that we brainstorm more creatively.
A more is more mindset is certainly apparent in the world of medicine. If a patient presents with a new symptom, the doctor typically prescribes a medication or recommends a lifestyle change. Perhaps subtraction neglect partially explains why so many people end up with tackle boxes of pills. Alas, the result of additive change is full medicine cabinets, closets, schedules, and landfills.
“Additive ideas come to mind quickly and easily, but subtractive ideas require more cognitive effort,” explained associate professor Benjamin Converse, coauthor of the study. “Because people are often moving fast and working with the first ideas that come to mind, they end up accepting additive solutions without considering subtraction at all.”
Before adding salt to your soup or adding yet another task to your to-do list, gather evidence, ask questions, and consider your options.
Bottom line: Consciously uncoupling unconscious tendencies can be liberating.
The number, frequency, and urgency of decisions that demand our attention on a daily basis are exhausting. Here are 5 strategies that might help.
Cream or Milk?
Do you want fries with that?
Should I bring an umbrella?
Our days are essentially one decision after another. The number, frequency, and urgency of decisions that demand our attention on a daily basis are exhausting. Decision-making has gotten even harder during the pandemic. As one patient told me recently, “It took me 10 minutes to decide if I should give my dog a bath today or tomorrow. I overthink everything. Every decision feels momentous.” Another told me that she and her partner took so long deciding what movie to watch they gave up after an hour of watching trailers. The idea of committing to anything feels daunting.
Increasing numbers report “decision paralysis” over minor and relatively inconsequential decisions. Nearly one-third of adults (32%) said sometimes they are so stressed about the coronavirus pandemic that they struggle to make basic decisions, such as what to wear or what to eat. Millennials (48%) were particularly likely to struggle with this when compared with other groups (Gen Z adults: 37%, Gen Xers: 32%, Boomers: 14%, older adults: 3%).
Sustained stress drains our cognitive resources, and the uncertainty of the pandemic has left many feeling emotionally exhausted and overwhelmed. Our brains are buckling under an endless stream of information, making it even harder to make good choices and focus our energy productively.
These days, the risks and benefits of participating in basic activities require ongoing assessment and evaluation. From attending social gatherings to going to a restaurant to taking public transportation, we have to ask ourselves, “Should I or shouldn’t I?”
Cognitive overload makes it challenging to process, sort, and prioritize data. As a friend put it recently, “Every decision makes me feel like Edvard Munch’s ‘The Scream.’ I just want to hold my head and shout ‘I don’t know.'”
If you are experiencing decision paralysis, here are 5 strategies that might help.
1. Stick to a routine
Establishing a predictable routine will help keep minor decisions at a minimum. Wash the dog on Sundays. Call your grandmother on Fridays. Schedule a walk with a friend on Saturdays. Structure leaves less wiggle room for indecision. Plus, research from the University of Southern California found that establishing healthy habits makes us more likely to default to them during periods of stress. For instance, participants who regularly ate oatmeal for breakfast during the semester were more likely to eat a healthy breakfast during exams. Students who ate unhealthy breakfasts during the semester — such as pastries or doughnuts — ate even more junk food during exams.
2. Be your own Choice Architect
Instead of depleting valuable cognitive resources to guide you through each and every decision, eliminate unnecessary choices. Steve Jobs famously wore a black turtleneck every day so he didn’t have to waste time thinking about what to wear. I have a friend who always orders the special in a restaurant so he doesn’t have to bother with the endless options on the menu. As your own choice architect, design your surroundings to promote choices that reflect your values. Fill your refrigerator with healthy options to spare, turn your bedroom into a sleep sanctuary, and place your sneakers by the front door to remind you to go for a walk. Making it harder to choose behaviors that don’t align with your values makes it easy to choose behaviors that do. Eliminate vitality draining options. If you throw out the candy bar in your desk drawer, you won’t waste time thinking about whether or not you should eat it.
3. Aim for good enough
Instead of investing substantial time and effort mulling over the details of every option, aim for good enough. Research in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that Maximizers, people who agonize endlessly over decisions, experience more regret and lower levels of happiness than Satisficers. If you are exhibiting Maximizing tendencies, consider the following exercise. Over the next week, make one choice every day that is “good enough.” For example, if deciding what to cook for dinner, throw together what you already have in the fridge. If in need of a new toothpaste, close your eyes and pull one off the shelf. Later in the day, reflect on why this choice was a fine choice as well as the benefits of deciding without relentless deliberation.
4. Remember to HALT
If decision fatigue is depleting your energy stores and willpower, don’t forget to HALT.
HALT stands for:
Hungry
Angry
Lonely
Tired
If you are experiencing any of the above, you may be vulnerable to making impulsive or suboptimal choices. The key is to recognize how these states might influence your decision-making capacity and to press pause before rushing into a decision you might later regret. Next time decision paralysis kicks in, ask yourself: Am I hungry, angry, lonely, or tired? Eating a snack, taking a walk, calling a friend, and getting a good night’s sleep might work wonders. As the old saying goes, don’t make a permanent decision because of a temporary emotion.
5. Perform a pre-mortem
Doctors perform a post-mortem when a patient dies to figure out the cause of death. A pre-mortem is the hypothetical opposite. Instead of waiting for “the end” to figure out what went wrong, a pre-mortem is a hypothetical exercise that you perform before a decision has been made. The idea is to imagine yourself in the future and that the decision you made did not turn out well. For instance, perhaps you are considering leaving your job. The upsides are obvious to you. To make sure you aren’t missing anything, fast forward in your mind three months and imagine that you are bored, lonely, and concerned about finances. By forcing yourself to imagine scenarios that turn out to be sub-optimal, you can pick up. blind spots in your thinking according to psychologist Gary Klein.
Bottom line: Don’t be a squirrel when it comes to making decisions.
You will have a better holiday if you put your phone away.
A study from the University of British Columbia found that phones make social interactions less fun.
“When we use our phones while we are spending time with people we care about—apart from offending them—we enjoy the experience less” explained one of the researchers, Ryan Dwyer.
When phones were on the table, participants reported more boredom during the meal. This finding surprised the researchers—they assumed that people would be less bored when they had access to their phones because they could entertain themselves if there was a lull in the conversation.
The joy-dampening effects of phones extend beyond the dinner table. In-person social interactions suffer when we are on our phones – be it at work, watching a movie, or taking a walk. Just the sight of a phone—yours or someone else’s—is enough to undermine the quality of a conversation.
Bottom line: There is a real and detectable benefit from putting your phone away when you’re spending time with friends and family.
Making a big entrance may be important, but don’t underestimate the benefits of having an exit strategy.
“I love you all dearly but want you all out by 10pm,” announced my friend with a huge smile. While not the typical dinner party greeting, I greatly appreciate her crystal clear message: enjoy but don’t overstay your welcome. My friend loves having people over but she also knows her limits. “Why not be up front about it?” she asked when I inquired about her bluntness. “I love my friends but I also love my bed. Knowing there is an end in sight alleviates my anxiety that it will go on forever.”
Socializing can be exhausting, especially during the holidays. It is no wonder that many complain about having a “social hangover” after a night out.
Social media posts go viral trying to capture the longing to communicate social satiety without offending anyone. Some of my favorites include:
In Japan, you serve people appetizers at a party all night long, and then when you’re ready for them to leave you serve them a hearty soup.
A group of friends who agreed that when someone is ready to leave, they’ll use the code word “Dick Wolf,” the Executive Producer of Law and Order.
Many variations on excuses for sick pets, children, and significant others who are, in fact, not sick at all.
The popularity of these posts and the comments they generated speak to our anxiety about having a way out of social situations when we have hit our limit.
If “ich fuhle mich jetzt genug beucht” doesn’t roll off your tongue and the other suggestions aren’t your style, here are some social extraction protocols that might help when you are feeling “visited enough.”
1. Set a time limit
In the same way that my friend builds an exit strategy into her dinner parties, explicitly communicate your time frame. “I have an early appointment tomorrow morning” and “I’m on my way to… (fill in the blank),” clearly convey that you don’t have all the time in the world to linger. This is especially helpful for over-talkers and serial clingers.
2. “Because” works wonders
As described in Robert Cialdini’s book Influence, people like explanations and the word “because” provides one or at least the illusion of one. There is a difference between saying “I have to go to bed” and “I have to go to bed because it’s so late.” People tend to be much more understanding when we give them a reason.
3. Enlist a partner
Work with a friend or your partner to move people along. Apparently a bartender go-to trick is to tell guests “You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here.”
Bottom Line: Making a big entrance may be important, but don’t underestimate the benefits of having an exit strategy. For those feeling socially spent, knowing you have an out will make your night out more enjoyable.
“If I had a penny for every article I read on why getting enough sleep matters, I would be a rich man,” grumbled my exasperated patient. He had read countless stories on why sleep is important. From a better mood to a slimmer waistline to a better sex life, he was well aware of the benefits of getting a good night’s sleep. Alas, I decided not to mention a new study that found going to bed between 10 and 11 pm reduces risk of heart disease.
He didn’t need more information on WHY sleep is as vital as the air we breathe or the food we eat. What he needed was an actionable strategy outlining HOW to fall asleep.
Like many people I know, he had difficulty getting into sleep mode. The moment he got into bed and turned the lights off, his mind woke up. No matter how exhausted he was, his thoughts started dancing the second his head hit the pillow.
We may have gained an extra hour last weekend but that doesn’t necessarily mean that we gained an extra hour of sleep. Only a small number take advantage of the added slumber time. In fact, many feel more sleep deprived because the shift in the body’s daily sleep-wake cycle can disrupt sleep for several days.
If you are having trouble falling asleep, the 4-7-8 technique can help you quiet your unquiet mind. It’s the stuff sweet dreams are made of.
“Insomnia is a glamorous term for thoughts you forgot to have in the day.” — Alain de Botton
Question: When I’m in a bad mood, people always tell me I have to let it go. How do I do that?
Answer: Elsa in the film Frozen is probably the only person who has ever benefitted from that empty phrase. Apologies to Disney, but telling someone to “let it go” is counter-productive for three reasons:
It implies that it’s possible to snap your fingers or wiggle your nose and move past whatever is bothering you.
It assumes that all negative emotions are problematic.
It can make a bad mood even worse.
Instead of trying to “let it go,” when you find yourself in a bad mood, try to pinpoint exactly what is bothering you and describe your feelings as precisely as you can. Are you frustrated? Disheartened? Despondent? Exasperated? Instead of resigning yourself to a generalized negative mood for the next few hours, put a label on your emotions. Break out a thesaurus if necessary.
People who are able to differentiate their negative emotions are better at regulating and managing them, according to science. Rather than being consumed by a general feeling of malaise, differentiators are more action oriented. Knowing what is wrong empowers them to seek a solution and tailor a response to the situation. For example, recognizing that you felt flustered after a disagreement with a colleague might prompt you to speak to the manager or go for a walk outside. Feeling “bad” doesn’t provide you with the same kind of useful information. It just hovers over you like a cloud. And because it is so vague, it can easily spill into other aspects of your life and be the reason you snap at your partner later that day.
People who struggle with emotion differentiation are more likely to feel overwhelmed and helpless. They may also be more vulnerable to unhealthy or unfocused responses like binge drinking or physical aggression. Distressing feelings are more likely to dominate their attention and dictate how they behave.
The good news is that emotional differentiation is a skill that can be learned and deployed on a daily basis.
By expanding your emotional vocabulary, you are giving yourself the tools to label and understand an array of nuanced emotional states. Not only will your bad moods feel less potent, you will be better equipped to handle negativity when it arises. Plus, “Let it go,” will be a phrase you are only subjected to in a movie.
