In Danny Sullivan’s summary of Google Zeitgeist conference, he quotes Google cofounder Larry Page as saying

There are no companies that have good slow decisions. There are only good companies that have fast decisions.

Larry had apparently deduced this from analyzing data from lots and lots of corporations. He apparently also had in mind that Google had not acted fast enough regarding a recent Motorola decision.

But, does his quote make for sound advice? It seems to me, as an outsider looking in, that Apple makes slow and thoughtful decisions. Do they perhaps miss some opportunities? Sure. We are Always going to miss some opportunities. Every one of us, from individuals to the most successful companies.

And Ray Dalio, head of the world’s most successful hedge fund, also focuses on making slow, but correct, decisions, as noted in this highly interesting interview of him.

The key of course is to make the Right decisions … sometimes you can do that with due speed, but often it takes a thoughtful approach with a lot of weighing of pro’s and con’s.

Back to the point about missed opportunities, Jeff Bezos emphasized, in this Bloomberg discussion of the Kindle Fire, that Amazon focuses on opportunities:

Bezos says he doesn’t think defensively.

“Everything we do is driven by seeing opportunity rather than being worried about defending,” he says. Given Apple’s inroads into the media business, that’s hard to believe. Bezos is magnanimous toward Jobs.

“On a personal level we have a tremendous amount of respect for Apple and Steve. I think that’s returned,” he says. “Our cultures start in the same place. Both companies like to invent, both companies like to pioneer, both companies start with the customer and work backwards. There’s a like-mindedness.” Pause. “Are two companies like Amazon and Apple occasionally going to step on each other’s toes? Yes.”

In thinking back over my 62 years on this little planet, I’d say that I sure could have benefitted from being more focused on opportunity than on “defense.” I can think of way too many opportunities that I let go, thinking that they would come again, never to see them again. And, sometimes I let opportunities pass because I didn’t see them at the time. Sometimes you are not going to see an opportunity if you don’t have an opportunity-mindset.

That’s it for today. Lots for you to think about (for example, did Larry Page draw the wrong conclusions from the data he looked at, because of one recent experience? If so, how would you avoid doing it yourself? Are there opportunities in your life that you have just been overlooking? [You have to take some time to really think on this one.} And so on.)

It seems like we are learning something new in this area almost every day. For example, yesterday’s New York Times recently carried an article on how scarcity of dollars (poverty) and scarcity of time (the average overworked person in the US) can negatively impact thinking, and even IQ. As if the poor weren’t stricken enough, they get a double-whammy:

A quick question: What is the starting taxi fare in your city? If you are like most upper-middle-class people, you don’t know. If you are like many struggling people, you do know. Poorer people have to think hard about a million things that affluent people don’t. They have to make complicated trade-offs when buying a carton of milk: If I buy milk, I can’t afford orange juice. They have to decide which utility not to pay.

These questions impose enormous cognitive demands. The brain has limited capacities. If you increase demands on one sort of question, it performs less well on other sorts of questions.

Shafir and Mullainathan gave batteries of tests to Indian sugar farmers. After they sell their harvest, they live in relative prosperity. During this season, the farmers do well on the I.Q. and other tests. But before the harvest, they live amid scarcity and have to think hard about a thousand daily decisions. During these seasons, these same farmers do much worse on the tests. They appear to have lower I.Q.’s. They have more trouble controlling their attention. They are more shortsighted. Scarcity creates its own psychology.

And, regarding scarcity of time:

Princeton students don’t usually face extreme financial scarcity, but they do face time scarcity. In one game, they had to answer questions in a series of timed rounds, but they could borrow time from future rounds. When they were scrambling amid time scarcity, they were quick to borrow time, and they were nearly oblivious to the usurious interest rates the game organizers were charging. These brilliant Princeton kids were rushing to the equivalent of payday lenders, to their own long-term detriment.

The world-wide impact of these findings is staggering, given that almost half the people on this planet live on less than $2 each/day, and given that scarcity of time impacts almost everyone in the Western world. While I don’t know that any of us, individually, can do much to help those who have the problem of scarcity of time, most of us can do more to help those who are poor. One way to do this is through donations to organizations in your area that help the poor. Another is to use a trusted international organization, such as World Vision.

As to the broad topic of behavioral economics, Edge.org has a master class on the topic. I have yet to go through all of the items (it is extensive), but have been fascinated by what I’ve learned from it so far. Of course, the books referenced above are also excellent resources.

I avoided most of the articles because (1) I could care less if the iPad impacts laptop sells and (2) I figured the articles were an exaggeration of the true picture.

Why did I expect that the articles were an exaggeration? Well, a lot of web site titles are exaggerations, and are worded so that they will draw visitors to see ads. Sad, but true. But, beyond that, when I see a title like “x causes y,” I immediately have suspicions, because we humans often over-simplify causal relationships.

We are wired to look for cause in everything, and we can’t help doing it. The reason we evolved this way was that it helped us survive. For much of our evolutionary history, the “causes” we came up with were accurate enough to help us take survival action, and so there has been no reason for the related portions of our brains to evolve to handle sophisticated causes with ease.

So, if we see something like laptop sells declining while iPads are selling like hotcakes, we often jump to the conclusion that people are buying iPads instead of laptops. The actual cause of declining laptop sells could be that the economy is keeping some people from buying them, others are pretty happy with their current laptops and feel no need to upgrade, some are increasingly using their smartphones for email and bill paying and no longer see the need for laptops, and, of course, some people may be buying iPads instead of laptops.

Hopefully I am not telling you something totally new. Rather, my intention is to remind you that it is so easy for us to jump to conclusions rather than really thinking things through. We can do it without ever realizing it. Again, we are wired to do this, because being quick at determining a cause often meant the difference between life and death to our ancestors.

Fortunately, our prefrontal cortex has evolved enough sophistication that, if we deliberately try to really analyze something, we can often do a decent job with it. The key is we have to stop and think, instead of letting our intuition come up with its quick answers. Intuition is good for a lot of things, but deeper analysis is often necessary to determine true cause. If you haven’t done so already, you may want to work at making this as much of a habit as you can.

(By the way, a great book on how we think is How We Decide.)

You might find it of interest to look for instances of “under-thinking” over the course of the next few days. And, of course, with the political season almost upon us, expect to see lots and lots of “our actions caused … ” When you take the time to really think about the examples the politicians give, you’ll see that they are generally being pretty deceptive (or falling for their own flawed logic).

One more tidbit to keep in mind: when analyzing some airline and nuclear power plant events about 30 years, my colleagues and I discovered that (1) almost all events have at least 2 or 3 causes, not just one cause (although there can be a primary cause), and (2) the leading causes of consequential events were virtually the same as the leading causes of small, less consequential events. Hence, by focusing on the “little events” and addressing their causes, you really can avoid the larger problems.

Yes, I am an old man by some standards, but I can assure you that my distaste for being “always on” is not because of my age. For example, this article in the New Scientist talks about research that has determined that being “always connected” drops your IQ about 10 points. It has the same deleterious effect on IQ as losing a night’s sleep or smoking marijuana.

Our brains are limited in the amount of attention they can give each day. Each thought burns glucose, so spending too much time on Twitter burns up brain energy that could be applied to something more important. Spend your day being “totally connected” and you could find that your brain doesn’t have the ability to solve a problem that arises for you in the evening.

It is sort of ironic that the technology that is supposed to be helping us is probably wasting more brain power than it is saving.

One of the key points from the study is that

… the rats’ behavioral perturbations were reflected by a pair of complementary changes in their underlying neural circuitry. On the one hand, regions of the brain associated with executive decision-making and goal-directed behaviors had shriveled, while, conversely, brain sectors linked to habit formation had bloomed.

In other words, the rodents were now cognitively predisposed to keep doing the same things over and over, to run laps in the same dead-ended rat race rather than seek a pipeline to greener sewers. “Behaviors become habitual faster in stressed animals than in the controls, and worse, the stressed animals can’t shift back to goal-directed behaviors when that would be the better approach,” Dr. Sousa said. “I call this a vicious circle.”

That is, there is an irony in that just when one most needs problem-solving abilities, the impact of chronic stress instead keeps one plugging away at non-solutions, sometimes not even recognizing that a problem needs to be solved or that the methods being used are not effective.

The article also notes that

In humans, though, the brain can think too much, extracting phantom threats from every staff meeting or high school dance, and over time the constant hyperactivation of the stress response can unbalance the entire feedback loop.

That is, we tend to create stress for ourselves: we are problem-solving creatures, by nature, and we will often turn a non-problem into a problem so that we have something for our minds to work on.

Okay, so what? What can one do? I’ve dealt with this before in an article entitled keep stress from breaking your brain. That article provides some tips on how to solve a problem when stress has heretofore hindered you from solving it.

And, while we can’t always avoid having stress brought upon us, we can work against having chronic stress by regular exercise, good nutrition (and the use of vitamin supplements), and the simple act of taking time out each day to express gratitude. The latter is something many of us forget to do regularly, but it can make a world of difference. Even when you think your world has gone to hell (and maybe it has), you can still list things to be thankful for, and doing so can help reduce your stress.

Perhaps the most important thing you can do for avoiding chronic stress, though, is to be a proficient task manager. I don’t mean that in the cranking widgets, bullshit way that David Allen worshipers so often talk about. I mean taking each thing you face and asking “does it work against (or for) any of my key values?” What about goals? Is it really important? Is it really urgent? Of course, when you ask these questions, you must realize that “important” and “urgent” are subjective terms, and that you can overrate/underrate either one if you are not relating them to the big picture (values and goals).

Note that I am not speaking against David Allen’s system, because you can make it work just as well, maybe better, than a Covey-type system, provided that you put each task in perspective. I have found that people often use GTD as a means of managing lists instead of managing their lives. Used properly, it is a great system. Used improperly, it can help push you into the chronic stress mode … and the same applies to Covey’s system.

Your thoughts?

But what about those problems you just can’t seem to wrestle to the ground? Well, I’ve just learned (again) that it is sometimes worthwhile to pay someone to help you solve such problems. I’ll illustrate:

1. Keener is unhappy with lack of growth of the Keener Living audience: very little increase in the number of subscribers over the past year.
2. Attempts several design tweaks.
3. Experiments with writing different types of articles.
4. Repeats 1, 2, and 3 lots and lots of times.

After finally realizing I was getting nowhere in solving this problem, I paid $100 for a quick assessment by a pro. From this I learned that

• I have too much variety in topics: life management, technology, science, theology, blogging, productivity, guitar music, parallel universes, …
• Doesn’t do good job of pointing to most popular articles (apparently the sidebar links fail in this regard)
• Needs a logo instead of a text header.

There’s more advice, but you get the point: paying for professional advice let me see where my real problems are, not just what I perceived them to be.

So, if you have a problem that is just not going away, this is a reminder that it may be time for you to get some professional advice on it.

Ah, But There’s More

Another thing you can do is to just talk the problem out with others, even if they aren’t experts. It might not get you the best results, but will sure be better than beating your head against the wall trying to solve it yourself.

For example, in just thinking about how to share this topic with you, I learned something else. (That is, in talking to you, I learned something.) Specifically, while the pro noted that I should move the music elsewhere and focus on life-management + productivity + technology, I am thinking now that I should focus on life-management + learning + technology.

For example, when I have talked about parallel universes, it has been done with the intent of helping you learn about something new. Why do that? Because, while I don’t know if there is a life after this one, I do know that this one is short and that you stand a better chance of doing well with it if you keep learning all of your life. That’s something that is important to me, and I believe everyone should do it.

So, What Will I Do With This Site?

I will focus on life management, learning, and technology topics. I do not plan to blog anymore on blogging-related topics, unless there is a general educational theme that can be made obvious. While I enjoying blogging about blogging, I will try to write those sorts of articles for publication on other blogs, such as was the case with my recent guest post at Search Engine Land.

The music? Ah, I am undecided how to best proceed on that. Technically the pro was right: it doesn’t belong here (there is not even a link to it in the menu right now), in that it doesn’t fit cleanly with anything else. My initial intent with it was to share it (1) so that I didn’t die with my music in me, so to speak, and (2) to emphasize that we should make use of our talents, all of them, and not just let them linger. But, I have not done a good job in putting the latter point across.

So, I suspect I will set up a separate site for the music. Stay tuned (pun intended, snicker, snicker, snicker).

As to the design of the site, we’ll see. I’m kinda happy with the current one, but I am also open to change. I do want to make sure I am sufficiently pleased with the design before hiring someone to design a logo for the site.

And, of course, I am always open to your thoughts.

From my almost 60 years on this planet, these findings seem spot on. Hence, I believe them to be worthy of sharing. Entirely too many people are saying that you should always trust your intuition.

One of these techniques is called change analysis, which this Wikipedia article describes as follows:

“An investigation technique often used for problems or accidents. It is based on comparing a situation that does not exhibit the problem to one that does, in order to identify the changes or differences that might explain why the problem occurred.”

This is a simple, yet powerful, tool for solving problems, and I am sharing it with you in case you are not familiar with it. It was brought to my mind when I used it to solve a problem I mentioned to you a couple of days ago. As I thought through the problem, I asked myself “what changes have I made to my site in the past several days?” Then, I just worked my way through the changes and found the one that had caused the problem.

You may very well have used this technique to solve problems in the past. If not, it is a good one to add to your skill set.

Ah, that’s the key, isn’t it … defining the results you want upfront. In his highly acclaimed Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, David Allen discusses this in terms of successful outcomes.

David’s view is that we should start the planning of all projects, even the simple ones, with a definition of what we consider the successful outcomes to be.

You probably know this, but are you doing it consistently and effectively? In my experience, it’s easy to overlook doing this for the simple projects. Sad, because simple projects can be just as important as complex ones.

Let’s consider a simple example: hosting a Christmas Dinner for your extended family. It’s easy to envision the steps needed to do the invitations, get the food, prepare it, do some decorations, and so on. But does putting food on the table and having some entertainment accomplish all you want to accomplish with the dinner? Probably not … there are likely some less tangible outcomes you would like to have.

One of the things that David recommends is to envision a time a couple months after the completion of the project, and ask yourself what you would like to as a “lasting result.” In our example, you might envision that the dinner helped overcome a strained relationship between a couple of family members. Then, you ask yourself, while you are still planning the dinner, how you might help bring that about.

So, as they say, there’s no rocket science here. But becoming consistent at doing this can can turn so-so projects into highly successful ones.

I recently saw an example of this happening. With all the stress that this time year brings on people, now compounded by a bad economy, I thought it would be good to talk about this.

Recently someone asked for my advice on making a choice, because he said that the stress of having to make the choice was too great and that he could not even think it through. His job is going away, at least in its current form, and he is faced with two alternatives for income, with neither of them being desirable.

I asked him if he had done the math, to see which alternative provided the better income. He had not. This surprised me, because I knew him to be a person who is normally good at thinking about which alternative is mathematically (financially) more sound. And, it is also when I realized how sinister stress can be, and how much it can impact the ability of our brains to function.

Just realizing that he could actually mathematically compare the two options helped him a lot. It relieved some of the stress. Of course, math is not all that is involved in making decisions, even economic ones, but sometimes “doing the math” is a big part of the decision process.

So what can we learn from this, and what other steps can we take when we are too stressed to think clearly? Well, I don’t pretend to know all the answers, but here are some things we can do:

• Talk with someone. This can be one of the most helpful things we can do, but we often do not do it because we are reluctant to let anyone know what we are going through. We don’t like to show a “weakness.” I am notoriously bad for this myself, and always like to keep my problems to myself, even though I know it is not a wise thing to do. Hence, I am preaching what I do not practice, because I know talking with someone can be very helpful. It helped my friend.
• Create alternatives. Stress is often due to having to choose between two unpleasant alternatives. So, if you take a pad of paper and just start brainstorming on the problems, asking yourself if there are other things you can do, it can be very helpful. Sometimes you can find an alternative that is actually attractive.
• Use a methodical decision-making process, such as I have outlined in this article on problem solving.
• Do deep-breathing. Exercise. Walk. The objective is to get more oxygen to your brain.
• Make sure you are feeding your brain properly. Stress often hurts the appetite, which in turn leads to more stress, because the brain needs nutrition. Your brain is like a furnace in some ways … it consumes a lot of the calories you put into your body, and it needs fuel to operate properly.
• Get rid of some activities. If you can, get rid of some of the things on your to-do list. Delegate or postpone. Pick what’s important for now, and get the other stuff away from your brain so you can focus better.
• Consider anti-depressants. Anti-depressants may be over-prescribed, but they can be helpful. Consult with a physician on this. If that’s a stress you don’t want for now, consider some of the herbal remedies … St. John’s Wort is considered to be pretty helpful. Beware, though: all medications, even herbal ones, have side effects.

That’s the list of things you can do that comes to my mind. My hunch is you have some excellent suggestions, and I look forward to hearing from you in the comments.