
The 7 Habits Of Highly Ineffective People - Janteh
http://danariely.com/2010/06/14/the-7-habits-of-highly-ineffective-people/
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bena
On 5. I'd take the higher $ regardless of what other people make. Even if I
had the choice of taking a job where I'd make half what the lowest paid person
makes in a company where employees are paid $120k on up or where I'd make the
average in a company where they make from $40k - $60k. I'd take the $60k
knowing I'd be the lowest paid in the company. I don't tie my self worth to
how well I do in comparison to other people. I compare what I have now to what
I can get tomorrow.

~~~
awa
Think this way: Most things in the world are priced by how much somebody is
willing to pay for them. So, if you are living someplace with a average salary
of $70k and taking in $60K you might be able to buy less than a guy earning
$55K where average income is $50K.

~~~
anamax
> So, if you are living someplace with a average salary of $70k and taking in
> $60K you might be able to buy less than a guy earning $55K where average
> income is $50K.

On the other hand, you might have more in the place with higher average
income. Remember that buying isn't the only way that you can get things.

Compare NYC with North Dakota. Things cost more in NYC than in ND, which is
bad if you're buying, but there is a lot more free stuff in NYC than ND.

Plus, there's more opportunity to move up in NYC than in ND. In some cases,
that opportunity is worth something.

~~~
gaius
There are some things that you will nearly always pay the "world price" for,
e.g. plane tickets. So tho' in a major metropolitan area food and rent may be
proportionally more, those things are proportionally less. It all depends on
what kind of thing you're into.

~~~
anamax
> It all depends on what kind of thing you're into.

Yup. Great museums are cheaper in NYC than ND but owning a horse is much
cheaper in ND.

Plane tickets between two specific locations are world price, but you also
have to take where you live into account.

For example, going to Singapore from Reno costs more than going from SF or San
Jose.

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avner
If I may chip in,

0\. _Lack Of Respect For Time_ \- A person who does not respect time will be
limited in what he can accomplish in this world, regardless of talent. Besides
your own, if you don't respect other people's time, your integrity depletes by
the second until there is none left. Almost everything else is a byproduct of
this, positive or negative.

~~~
elblanco
> if you don't respect other people's time, your integrity depletes by the
> second until there is none left.

It's interesting that you hi-lighted this. I just had an extremely annoying
experience the other day with a VP in my company. Long story short, he decided
to question what I was spending my time on and why client engagements took
more than a 45 minute meeting like he experiences when doing a sales pitch(I
perform most of the execution end of business relationships in my company --
things that take dozens of hours).

I decided after a couple meetings of having my time questioned like that that
I had lost quite a bit of respect for him and will probably not suffer that
kind of thing again without there being serious repercussions inside the
company -- like a reorg so that we're no longer in the same management chain.

He absolutely didn't respect the 80 hour weeks I put in to keep the company
afloat. Since that's time out of my personal time, _and_ I could be doing
something at another company for the 40 I'm supposed to be doing, it's a lack
of respect for me.

~~~
loewenskind
If you're putting in 80 hours and getting paid for 40 then it sounds like you
don't respect yourself. Why would he?

~~~
elblanco
Welcome to working in a startup.

~~~
loewenskind
Well, if you have a part of the company that's one thing but if you're an
employee, startup or not, putting in these kind of ours is a waste.

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rationalbeaver
Good, article, but let's be honest here. We all know this is the real list:

1\. Reddit/HN/Digg/etc.

2\. Facebook (move to #1 if you play Farmville or are female)

3\. Steam/xbox/playstation/WOW/Dwarf Fortress

4\. Checking Email

5\. Watching videos/movies/tv

6\. Doing something pointless on your phone

7\. Etc. Choose your own time-waster

~~~
maukdaddy
Civ IV.

=(

~~~
MaMa
<http://www.civanon.org/>

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paylesworth
I'm hoping he's trying to be facetious in this article because the only
"ineffective habit" that I see in this article is #1. And, I could argue that
is not always a bad thing because of the quality-of-life benefits you get from
seeing the 'big game' or spending time with your friends.

#2 and #6 are pretty much saying the same thing. Both speak to how people tend
to be over-optimistic with work they're planning to take-on and are unable to
take into account of the possible delays to doing that work. Also with #2,
It's not clear if he's saying that planning itself is a ineffective habit or
if its just the inability to take into account future events.

I'd lump #3 and #4 together as both of these are symptoms of the same problem
as well, seeking constant distraction.

#5 is poorly described as it does not describe a habit. He should call this
the "keeping up with the Jones's." Either way, I don't really agree that this
make people ineffective. Misguided? Maybe.

Edit: fixed some spelling errors.

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mannicken
Sounds more like "7 habits of highly bored people" :) But in addition to word-
playing with the title, why don't I also say something useful for a change.

Why is everyone so concerned with efficiency? One might say "that machine is
efficient" or "this machine is not efficient". Why is that? Well, machines are
created and owned by humans for a specific purpose -- a coffee-maker makes
coffee; a CPU processes logical operations; a carriage horse drags around a
cart full of spoiled rich humans :)

We can talk about efficiency of things we own but we can no longer own humans.
In a civil society, humans are owners of services that they exchange under
conditions of a free and fair market.

There, I said it. Now stop talking about efficiency of humans. Start creating
efficient things that efficiently do all the things we hate so we can all be a
bunch of lazy fucks :)

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sev
#1 should not be procrastination. It should be __"Bad Prioritization"
__instead. This is because, procrastination in itself is not a bad thing; not
only that, it's necessary and impossible to get around. We all procrastinate,
because at any given moment we have a ton of tasks that we want/need to do and
that we could do, but since we can't do them all at once, we have to
_prioritize_. If we are bad at that, then we could become ineffective.

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RevRal
I've been trying something new for the past couple of weeks that seems to be
working pretty well: throughout the day, I disable my internet connection by
hitting the wifi button on my laptop.

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kadavy
#3 should just be shortened to "driving"

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mkramlich
Anything that causes you to use time, energy or money less efficiently
generally contributes to one being less effective, successful or productive.
I've built this element into a few of my game designs, where, for example, the
player can acquire assets or skills which reduce the future time/energy/money
cost of doing something worthwhile or necessary. So it's like an investment
where the payoff is an accelerating factor on everything else the player wants
to do.

