Category: “Personal Productivity”

In their book Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, the Heath brothers argue that if you want to change the way someone behaves (including yourself) you’ll need to appeal to both the Rider and the Elephant within that person.

Principles and rules can be understood in different ways, so in this article I will refer to principles as “fundamental ideas that govern someone’s thought or behavior”, and to rules as “that which must be complied with because it has been agreed within a community.”

Do you feel that your productivity is lower than expected? You feel overwhelmed with that amount of tasks, “distracted” is your middle name and you still exceed deadlines.

I don’t know if everyone is able to feel it, but happiness at work exists. Most of us have experienced what Mihály Csíkszentmihályi calls a state of flow, a time when you’re absorbed in your creativity and feel a great satisfaction developing your work. Even if you are working, those moments of happiness are perfectly comparable to those you spend with your family and friends.

All of us, some more than others, are victims of the default effect. When we have a lot of options to choose from, among which there’s a predetermined one—a default choice—most of us just go with the standard option. In other words, we choose not to choose.