Thinking too much leads to an inability to act. This is called “paralysis by analysis”. Gamifying and building up motivation can have a similarly negative effect. Since I did not find any literature on this, I call it “Paralysis by octalysis”. Below is a typical example and several antidotes. Gamification Octalysis is a gamification framework …
Elegance and minimalism as a cultural quality
Japanese culture is minimalistic and elegant. What can we learn from it, and how can we implement the best sides of this culture? Do we really need all the stuff that we have, and what price do we pay for it? Elegance and minimalism also cost money. What is the best tradeoff? I will share …
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Humanity’s Tendency Towards Loneliness
Is loneliness so bad? So many of us replaced real-life connections with virtual ones. We miss the human touch. Our brain reacts differently. We are social animals. Yet many people in human history willingly choose and enjoy loneliness and even hermitage. I did not form my opinion yet, so I invited Jack Lee to write …
Illusions and perspectives
Visual illusions use the automatic mechanisms of the brain to create something that is not there or create multiple alternative re.presentations. Sometimes life itself feels like the greatest illusion of them all. By changing the perspective, we can understand some illusions better. What can we learn from this? For today’s reading, the links are here, …
Eight Solid Ways to Improve All Types of Your Business Writing
Many of my students learn speedreading and speedwriting to boost their careers. Any careers. A large part of my career dealt with research, product design, and engineering. So my examples also come from my world. This is one of the reasons I like it so much to present you with guest posts. Here Jessica Fender, …
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The most effective mindset for training
It is hard to overestimate the role of psychological aspects in learning and productivity. While these aspects might be transparent and hard to deal with, they define the ultimate success or failure of the entire process. Each kind of training may need a different mindset. Usually, the most effective combination is passionate anticipation before the …
Eleven twelve and counting systems
Our math is strongly linked with our fingers. If we ever meet another civilization, even on this earth, the numbers will probably be different. How come? This discussion is an exercise in basic mathematical and historic intuition. Very few people see math the way I present it here. How do you count fingers? We have …
Identity and destiny
One of the hardest questions I know: do we have power over our destiny? I will rephrase. To which extent are we controlled by our passions and indifference rather than a conscious choice? Which individual differences guide our decisions and luck? Can we learn our own identity? Can we learn to be better as human …
MindfulMess and creativity
I have my fair share of typos. When you read fast and write fast, typos happen. Some typos are really stupid. Others make you think… This is so-called “out of the box creativity”. We stumble upon something cool by mistake but are mindful enough to use it. I wrote MindfulMess instead of mindfulness, and this …
Can we really understand our future self?
One of the visualization exercises we promote is talking to your “future self”. We discuss the most pressing subjects with the person we hope to become one day. This is not the person we eventually become! Today’s reading selection is here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. Best possible future self I quote the …
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