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LM: #296: The pool table paradox

December 30 2024 – 09:00am

When it’s easier, you do it more. Or do you?

If you get home gym equipment and cancel your membership, you might find you work out less.

When you belonged to the gym, you had to put things in place to get a workout. Find the time, pack your gym bag, schedule your other errands for your drive to or from the gym.

You had to create what behavioral scientists call an “implementation intention.” The more specific your implementation intention, the more likely you’ll follow through.

But when you have a home gym, your implementation intention gets weaker. You don’t schedule a workout because you can do it whenever. When you do think about working out, your brain conveniently reminds you it’s time to change the air filter on your furnace.

I propose a cognitive bias, heretofore unknown, called the “pool table paradox.” It’s the paradox that sometimes when it’s more convenient, it’s harder to do.

As most people who have had a pool table know, pool tables are lots of fun when you’re at a bar or a friend’s house. But then you buy a pool table, thinking you’ll play all the time. Somehow, you never do.

Sometimes, by making it a little harder to do, you do it more.

Aphorism: “The great difficulty of writing is to make the language of the educated mind express our confused ideas, half feelings, half thoughts, when we are little more than bundles of instinctive tendencies.” —Helen Keller

Cool: StayFocusd is a simple Chrome extension for blocking yourself from distracting sites.

Best,
David
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