The effective management of wants
#47 - banana bread bonanza...and midnight baking
Hi there,
How are you feeling today? New month, new school year post-summer for most, energy levels and ‘vibes’ must be high - excellent.
This week has been a ⚖️ between work and play. Making my way through the summer work set, entering an essay competition 17 minutes past the deadline (and getting away with it 🤭😁) put together with the annual unmissable back-to-school rummage of stationery shops in town and an afternoon out at the park today. It was amusing to hear 5-6yos trying to strengthen their sales muscles, attempting to convince their parents on why they need a 40-colour pens pack.
Highlight of the week: spending the afternoon at my previous neighbour’s, Annie. We chatted about all kinds of things whilst indulging in a puzzle, some cheese rolls and listening to a podcast about communist China recommended by yours truly before.
Before my exams, I strived to slot in a cooking session once every weekend. Alas, that habit has melted like ice cream on a summer day.
“Time to get back to it”, I felt, when I got back from India. And that’s what I did on Monday, baking banana bread using a recipe from a baking book.
3 hours later turned out a masterpiece as you can see below. Don’t you just want to gobble that parcel of sugary syrup, bananas and soft bread?
By the way, lesson learnt: make sure you read the whole recipe before cooking anything, not just the ingredients 🤦♂️. (Groan)
On Tuesday, I kept it outside and found myself taking tiny bits to nibble each time I passed the kitchen, like a naughty monkey 🐵. Thankfully, there was almost half of it left at the end of the day.
The next day, in order to preserve the banana creation, we kept it inside. Halfway through the day, when I got the craving to eat some, I didn’t. It was only at around 7 in the evening when I munched off a little when having my milk.
What does this inadvertent experiment show? First, the need for an additional step (albeit simple) to eat the bread made it less attractive, and I didn’t act on it. (Or maybe I’m lazy… 🤫) Second, without the repeated sight of the treat, I didn’t get the impulse to eat it.
These are examples of the 1st Law (make it obvious) and 3rd Law (make it easy) of James Clear’s Four Laws of Behaviour Change (in his book Atomic Habits).
The first finding can be explained by the fact that humans are fundamentally lazy (I hate to break it to you). We look for shortcuts, cheat codes, and the easy route out. More formally, the path of least resistance.
And why wouldn’t you? Why wouldn’t you make life easy? To the caveman, it saved energy. To us, it saves effort.
“Energy is precious, and the brain is wired to conserve it wherever possible. It is human nature to follow the Law of Least Effort…when deciding between 2 similar options, people will naturally gravitate toward the option that requires the least amount of work.”
We are survival machines, trying to save up our power for any future need. Why spend it on studying when I can watch the 29th episode of F.R.I.E.N.D.S?
Here’s what to take away:
If you want to form a habit, make it easy for yourself. Reduce the (perceived) friction between thought and action. This could be ‘environment design’ (the most used example is having your exercise clothes ready to go for the morning).
If you want to break a habit, make a U-turn. Make it harder to act upon, like logging out of/deleting a social media app from your phone, forcing you to have to go through the bother of logging on the (inconvenient) web app.
Linked to this closely is the 3rd Law - make it obvious. This could also take the shape of setting up your space to encourage or discourage a practice. Other suggestions he includes are habit stacking (glueing an existing one to the new one) and implementation intentions (I will do X at Y o’clock in the Z room). Have a read of the book for more.
You are a lazy indisciplined monkey lacking willpower. Specifically, your mind is and you are engaged in a game with it. 2 cheat codes to flummox it and end up champion: make it hard to reach for and out of sight (so out of mind) 👊.
Book of the week 📖
A quarter of the way through How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Similar to Atomic Habits, I’ve come across some of the ideas in here before - guess that what happens when people repurpose stuff from good books (like me today 😄). Still a fun read, interesting examples as well.
Podcast of the week🎙️
Feeling Stressed? Here’s how to Think Like a Monk: FOMO Sapiens with Patrick J. McGinnis
From the man who invented the term we all throw around casually in text-speak, here’s a chat (of optimal length) between him and the ever-knowledgeable Jay Shetty.
Article of the week📰
We’re all tracking private flights now
Private jets are one of those luxuries that seem unnecessary but you’d so love. Turns out you can track those ones now too ✈️
Quote of the week💬
You have all the reason in the world to achieve your grandest dreams. Imagination plus innovation equals realization. - Denis Waitley
Back to school tomorrow. Here’s to an outstanding year ahead 🥂
Adi