
Busyness leads to bad decisions - hhs
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20191202-how-time-scarcity-makes-us-focus-on-low-value-tasks
======
twoquestions
Can personally confirm.

A while ago my car died, so I suddenly needed transport _right now_. I was
considering renting a car, but my family loaned me an extra vehicle they had
on hand that they keep around for just these emergencies. EDIT: No, there is
absolutely no public transport out here. People who can't drive for whatever
reason have a very hard time of it.

I would have made a much worse decision if I had to pay for every day I took
to make it. Given the luxury of time, I made a much better buying decision for
the new-to-me vehicle.

One of the many ways it's expensive to be poor.

~~~
larnmar
> One of the many ways it's expensive to be poor.

On the other hand, consider — poor people don’t have to worry about having a
car that keeps up with the Joneses, so they can drive around in a beater. If I
had a dirty 1999 Camry then my rich neighbours would look askance at me.

If you think it’s expensive to be poor, try being rich.

~~~
shantly
> poor people don’t have to worry about having a car that keeps up with the
> Joneses

Neither do the old-money (or socialized to behave the same) rich. That's the
behavior of someone who's worried about being mistaken for poor.

~~~
larnmar
If you’re middle class with a shitty car, everyone thinks you’re poor. If
you’re rich with a shitty car, everyone just thinks you’re painfully
eccentric.

------
automatoney
So the article mentions "that one study found people preferred giving
themselves electric shocks rather than have nothing to do" which sounded like
an interesting study. The link provided was to
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20548057](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20548057)
, and after searching I found this
[https://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/christopher.hsee/vita/Paper...](https://faculty.chicagobooth.edu/christopher.hsee/vita/Papers/IdlenessAversion.pdf)
which strangely doesn't mention electric shocks at all.

~~~
FernandoTN
The study mentioned is "Just think: The challenges of the disengaged mind"
[https://science.sciencemag.org/content/345/6192/75](https://science.sciencemag.org/content/345/6192/75)

>Next, participants received our standard instructions to entertain themselves
with their thoughts (in this case for 15 min). If they wanted, they learned,
they could receive an electric shock again during the thinking period by
pressing a button. We went to some length to explain that the primary goal was
to entertain themselves with their thoughts and that the decision to receive a
shock was entirely up to them. Many participants elected to receive negative
stimulation over no stimulation—especially men: 67% of men (12 of 18) gave
themselves at least one shock during the thinking period [range = 0 to 4
shocks, mean (M) = 1.47, SD = 1.46, not including one outlier who administered
190 shocks to himself], compared to 25% of women (6 of 24; range = 0 to 9
shocks, M = 1.00, SD = 2.32).

You can read the complete study here, [https://wjh-
www.harvard.edu/~dtg/WILSON%20ET%20AL%202014.pdf](https://wjh-
www.harvard.edu/~dtg/WILSON%20ET%20AL%202014.pdf)

I´m quite intrigued about the outlier who managed to shock himself every 4.7
seconds for 15 minutes straight. Was he trying to go for a record or just
plain masochism...

~~~
RobertRoberts
It's too bad studies like this have errors (obvious only in retrospect). I
learned as a kid to entertain myself with thoughts and can do so easily for a
long time.

But I will shock myself at least once just to see how bad the shock is... not
because I would be bored.

(unless they took this into account and let everyone shock themselves before
starting the experiment? That would be smart of them... didn't have time to
read the study)

~~~
automatoney
I wondered about the same, see my sibling comment. They all had been shocked
and had said they'd pay to not be shocked again.

------
birdyrooster
"And humans enjoy feeling busy and productive."

I have never enjoyed feeling busy.

~~~
leggomylibro
How about feeling idle with nothing to do but consider your own mortality? Not
many people enjoy that, and Pascal wrote an interesting paper about it:

[http://stmaryvalleybloom.org/pascal-
diversion.html](http://stmaryvalleybloom.org/pascal-diversion.html)

Personally, my main takeaway can be summarized by this passage:

>And those who philosophise on the matter, and who think men unreasonable for
spending a whole day in chasing a hare which they would not have bought,
scarce know our nature. The hare in itself would not screen us from the sight
of death and calamities; but the chase, which turns away our attention from
these, does screen us.

~~~
gerbilly
> The hare in itself would not screen us from the sight of death and
> calamities

The irony is not lost on me that the man in this anecdote is bringing untimely
death to the hare, to distract himself from his own.

Death probably feels just like you felt before you were born.

Why not celebrate that there is anything to experience at all? It seems so
improbable.

~~~
leggomylibro
Haha, yeah. But hunting is just one of the examples that Pascal uses because
of the times, along with gambling and war.

Metaphorically, that passion project or artistic pursuit that you can't quite
explain a practical use for is more or less the same idea.

------
DarwinMailApp
I could not agree more. For years I was just doing things for the sake of
being busy.. crossing tasks off my todo list on a daily basis. I felt so
accomplished, however, I was not really getting a lot of useful work done!

\--------------------------

What did I do?

\- I started thinking about the tasks I needed to do, assessing if they were
actually important to begin with.

\- I often found that they were not adding value to my product (DarwinMail[1])
and so I discarded them.

\- I also quickly completed any task that would take 5 minutes or less to
complete.

\--------------------------

What was the result?

\- About a year on and I have a successful product (well, success in my head
is a product which has thousands of users of which at least hundreds love the
product and could not live without it).

\- I feel more successful, more fulfilled and a greater sense of
accomplishment.

[1] [https://www.darwinmail.app](https://www.darwinmail.app)

~~~
afarrell
> assessing if they were actually important to begin with.

I've found answering "Is this important?" very hard. I find it much easier to
answer "What is the impact if I do this?"

~~~
DarwinMailApp
You and me both buddy!

I like your style.. and sometimes I ask myself other questions like will it
matter to me in 10 hours, 10 days or 10 weeks?

The longer into the future it matters to me, the more important it is to get
done IMO :)

~~~
AstralStorm
I'd phrase it differently: think what will it won't happen if you reorder the
tasks, and how long it will take to achieve.

Mind that both are estimates and can change.

~~~
DarwinMailApp
No that is a more powerful motivator. Thanks for the tip!

------
pklingens
Busyness is the path to the dark side. Busyness leads to tunnelling.
Tunnelling leads to bad decisions. Bad decisions lead to suffering.

------
loceng
Busyness - or rushing?

~~~
AstralStorm
You don't have to rush to have no spare time to think.

