Comments on: Get 40% more done, keep it secret

By: Ascription is an Anathema to any Enthusiasm › Eccentric goals

Ascription is an Anathema to any Enthusiasm › Eccentric goals — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 16:10:58 +0000

[...] public service announcement: You’ll get 40% more done by keeping your plans secret! So if your writing up resolutions and goals, have at it; but consider tearing up the list and [...]

By: Zack

Zack — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:53:34 +0000

Footnote. Sid Vicious may have put it best when he sang:

The record shows, I took the blows/
And did it my way.

By: Zack

Zack — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 01:49:49 +0000

It’s possible the working hypothesis has it backwards. I have often completed things that I have kept secret (yeah, yeah, anecdotal evidence. But you have to start somewhere), and vice versa.

For me, not completing the public things isn’t because I’ve already earned any credit for them, it’s because the potential credit has already been diluted.

This is like child psychology or something. But if you do something without anyone knowing, then you get full credit. OTOH, if you say “I’m going to summit Everest”, and your mom pays for mountain climbing lessons, and your dad takes you to Asia, and all your friends send you care packages, by the time you get near the top, you may no longer know whom you are doing it for.

I propose that this selfish calculus can be internalized and can work mischief on even the most minute and symbolic scale.

By: bhyde

bhyde — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:23:16 +0000

C -

One of the striking things about the study is how slight the pressure was, maybe even nonexistent. The subjects revealed their plans in the surveys to the experimenter. But it wasn’t the focus of the survey, and it was revealed only minimally – i.e. not to their peers or mother etc. I think the researchers were trying tease out the revealing v.s. the pressure and they intentionally minimized the pressure.

The complex prolog in my explanation, the stuff about how we work to become what we want to be. Reflects the model the paper adopts about how we construct your identities. It also reflects my interests.

By: C Smithy

C Smithy — Thu, 28 May 2009 15:05:11 +0000

Why such a convoluted explanation to this phenomenon? Perhaps it’s just that they perform better because there’s less pressure.

By: Ben Hyde

Ben Hyde — Thu, 28 May 2009 03:17:05 +0000

Shane – I suspect there maybe a kind of child psychology catch-22 things here. Knowing that you take credit for doing by merely announcing may well mean that you don’t take credit when you do, in which case it doesn’t matter.

It is topical, but in a way so convoluted I doubt anybody would care or notice .

By: Shane Curcuru

Shane Curcuru — Thu, 28 May 2009 02:22:55 +0000

Drat – I just published (well, in a closed community) a bunch of my intentions. Does that mean I should cut my losses now, and just give up on that activity? Or should I hope to be one of the lucky few that actually follows through?

Did you have a particular current life reason for bringing this up, or did the article just happen to catch your eye recently?