But the reality is that when the long term and short term collide, the short term always wins. We mean well. We really do. But we are programmed to take care of the immediate first. It may be a legacy of our earliest ancestors' experience on the African savannah: food, safety, then worry about the other stuff.
As our Maslow-ian needs are met, we are encouraged to think strategically, organize productively and act efficiently. Except that, as the following article explains, we are creatures of habit. We need rewards and so, in the absence of much incentive from the economy and society, we take on that task ourselves. Coffee breaks, snacks, checking Facebook, all serve the purpose of providing a 'well-deserved' break from the routine.
Which is why increasing productivity is like dieting. The inclination to do so is counterintuitive. We break our own rules and defy our own best intentions because our short term need for validation overcomes our determination to achieve longer term goals.
The implications for regulatory reform of the financial sector, fiscal policy and a host of other salutory public policy goals is profound. Our long term societal or organizational or institutional interests run afoul of the personal interests claimed by those who must effect - and be affected by - these changes. And opponents of otherwise laudatory programs count on that.
This is part of the reason why businesses always prefer machines to human employees. None of that sloppy personal stuff. But for those who require human innovation, interaction and implementation, the answer may simply be that taking human behavior into account has to be part of the equation. Build it into the model. Understand that the 'friction' derived is also part of what inspires, instructs and invents. We could not have gotten this far as a species unless we understood the tension between self-interest and self-destruction. Figuring out how to convince others of that - from their vantage point - may be the most effective behavior modification of all. JL
Howard Jacobson comments in Fast Company:
There’s an entire industry devoted to helping you and me be productive. Software, advice blogs, workshops, hardware, apps, books--you name it.
All this stuff is generally organized around a few sound principles, which I’m sure you’ve come across:1.Make lists 2.Prioritize the actions on those lists 3.Tackle the most important items first. Given our strong desire to be productive, and knowledge of these principles, and familiarity with all the tools and techniques of the Getting Things Done industry, why isn’t it helping? Things become a bit clearer when we replace “be productive” with another very popular resolution: losing weight.
While there are debates within that community about which is the best diet strategy, I don’t know of many health coaches or diet writers who recommend sodas, candy, cookies, donuts, bagels, and greasy burgers on white buns.
And yet most dieters, who certainly “know better,” keep cheating and sneaking and rationalizing food choices that conflict with their big goal. Their minute-by-minute decisions undermine their desired outcome.
Why?
What Motivates Behavior?
In The Power of Habit, Charles Duhigg describes the inexorable pull of the “habit loop.” Something in our environment happens that triggers our desire for a “reward.” We are then compelled to take the actions that we think will get us that reward.
The reward can be a burst of energy, or a moment of connection with another person, or a positive emotion like happiness. It can also be avoidance of a negative, as when we distract ourselves to avoid feeling feelings or thinking thoughts that we are unwilling to entertain.
As long as we are unconscious of the environmental trigger and the compelling reward, we literally have no choice but to follow the pattern habit. And every time we comply, we dig the habit groove deeper and more automatically into our nervous system’s hard wiring.
We can try to override that habit loop, which is another way of saying “New Years Resolution.” But as studies have shown, willpower is a finite resource. It’s a muscle that tires quickly, much quicker than the death of the habit we want to be rid of. In other words, in the battle between short- and long-term thinking, short term always wins.
The Futility of Time Manipulation
Virtually all the strategies of the get-it-done industry consist of some form of time manipulation. Meaning, some way to trick ourselves into doing what, in that moment, we really don’t want to do.
Trying to build new habits on top of dysfunctional old ones works about as well as putting a new car body on top of a rusty old engine. If we don’t deal with the fundamental issue, no amount of time blocking or beepers beeping or context-based task lists will overcome the pull of the habit mind.
So I could tell my friend Felix to block out two hours every morning to get the big stuff done. To set a timer, maybe even a ticking kitchen timer, on his desk to remind him not to check email, code a web page, pay bills, or check Facebook.
And that would probably work for a while.
But eventually, something unacceptable would happen: Felix would find himself with nothing to do.
He’d get all his high-level work done. And he’d sit there, pleased with himself, for about four seconds.
And then he’d start to feel those feelings.
Which feelings, I don’t exactly know. Possibly feelings of “If I’m not busy, then I’m not worthy.” Or maybe, “Now that I have nothing to do, I could start feeling this deep sadness about how my father left when I was 6.” Or even, “I don’t like myself.”
The content of the thought or feeling doesn’t really matter. We all have thoughts and feelings like this (or we would, if we didn’t keep ourselves perpetually busy). They don’t necessarily mean anything is wrong with us. We’ve all been wounded by life, and those wounds all leave scars.
Resistance
The problem is not the thoughts and feelings themselves, but our resistance to them. If we simply allowed ourselves to feel the feelings, and entertain the thoughts without believing them, they would lose their power over us.
My own fear of abandonment used to absolutely own me. Whenever I was less than perfect, I would feel this tug of fear in my gut. If it could speak, it would have said, “Nobody’s going to want to be with you unless you’re flawless. You’d better hide or fix this mess before anybody finds out.”
I so didn’t want to feel that fear of abandonment, that I pushed aside all situations in which it could arise. I distracted myself, not with busy work, but with “good work.” I would fill so much of my time with pro bono work that I wasn’t making enough to live on. I would say yes to every client request, whether it was reasonable or not, whether it was something I wanted to do or not, because I didn’t want to experience the fear of abandonment.
There was no time management technique that could have released me from this curse. At best, time tracking brought awareness of the problem, so that I could see the vast mountains of unbillable hours and start to wonder about them.
But only a willingness to explore what happened when I consciously refused to indulge the habit brought me to freedom.
Freedom From Bad Habits
I learned how to sit with feelings that I had assumed would annihilate me. By experiencing them, I learned how to make peace with them. To discover that they were just feelings. That I could feel them and my world would not end.
At that point, I still had a bunch of “bad” work habits. They didn’t go away simply because I understood their purpose.
But at that point, the time manipulation strategies started working. Now when I block four hours for writing, I am much less tempted to bug out mentally and go on a Youtube binge. Now I can complete unpleasant tasks like calling back unhappy clients without going through paroxysms of avoidance. Now I can sit and meditate for 20 minutes every morning without finding a new daily excuse to avoid it.
When we try to apply the quick fix of tactical manipulation to behaviors whose roots are unseen, we not only fail, but we tend to reinforce the very thoughts and feelings that are causing the problem in the first place. Our failure becomes more tangible proof of our unworthiness, and like a yo-yo dieter, we careen between irrational hope and dark despair, always ready to buy another self-help productivity book, another to-do list app, another personal organizer.
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