Category: Cognative Errors

Rest – A Radical Act

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When was the last time your just laid back and rested? Not sat on the coach phone scrolling or binge watching a tv show. When was the last time you simply rested?

For most of us, that hasn’t happened recently. According to professional speaker and author Shola Richards, that is a big problem.

In a recent article on his Substack called, The Radical Act of Rest, he outlines why deliberate rest is fundamental to our well-being. He starts by disputing the idea that rest must be earned only after all other chores and tasks are accomplished.

“I mean, you don’t earn the right to drink water, do you? You don’t earn the right to use the restroom either. Rest is literally in the same category. We need to stop thinking of rest as reward for being productive. More accurately, rest is a fundamental biological need that makes productivity possible.“

Shola Richards

After shattering the earned rest myth, Shola goes on to define the different types of rest that we need.

  1. Physical rest: This is the most obvious one (night time sleep, power naps, and allowing your body to take a break).
  2. Mental rest: Time where your brain is not solving problems, processing information, consuming content, or generating output.
  3. Emotional rest: Time away from managing anyone’s feelings, problems or drama (and yes, this one is especially tough for parents of young kids).

In order to put this idea into practice, Shola outlines ways to bring more rest into your life. Even as he does so, he still acknowledges that we are fighting old ways of thought by doing so.

Choosing to intentionally rest can be really hard (at least, it was initially for me), because it requires us to override years of programming that taught us that our worth is conditional on our productivity.

To learn more about the benefits of rest and how to incorporate them into your daily routine, please read the rest of his article.

Now if you’ll forgive me, I’ll be taking a nap.

Busyness Isn’t A Badge Of Honor

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Are you busy? I mean, really busy? So busy you barely have time to read this post?

It is easy to fill our days with endless tasks, whether they are assigned to us by others or self-chosen. It is in the nature of knowledge work that there is always something more that can be done or a project that can be constantly refined. However, does that approach to work, the attempt to do as much as possible, effectively work?

In a recent post on the Choice360 website called Busyness Isn’t A Badge of Honor, blogger Alejandro Marquez argued that falling into the busy trap is not a worthy goal. Coming at the problem from the perspective of librarianship, he shares the following insight.

Within the library profession, this susceptibility to busyness is arguably even more pronounced. Library work is often demanding and time-sensitive, requiring constant engagement. Workers are expected to be a resource, a guide, a confidante, and a problem-solver. The pressure to be available, responsive, and supportive can feel immense, particularly when students themselves are struggling with similar pressures.

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Added on to this problem, is the burden of “Compassion Fatigue.” Marquez identifies this mindset in the following way:

Compassion fatigue is the emotional and physical exhaustion experienced by those constantly providing care and support. It’s the cumulative toll of advocacy work, direct student support, and the relentless urgency that permeates our daily routines. Workers are constantly asked to be empathetic, understanding, and proactive, often without adequate support or recognition. This labor of constant care, coupled with the pressure to be “always on,” can lead to a profound sense of depletion, leaving professionals feeling drained, overwhelmed, and disconnected.

How can librarians, or any profession for that matter, overcome the busy trap? The first step is about reclaiming boundaries.

This is crucial. Establish clear boundaries around work hours, communication channels, and availability. Learn to say “no” without feeling guilty.

Additionally, workers should prioritize self-care outside of work.

Workers can engage in activities that replenish energy and support well-being through exercise, mindfulness, hobbies, and spending time with loved ones.

Read the rest of the article to learn more idea to reclaim a sense of self-worth and avoid the busy trap. Go ahead, make the time for it. The lessons will be worthwhile.

Have You Done a Time Audit?

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Where did the time go?

Do you regularly feel like the day got away from you. That long to do list has very little marked off. Even more importantly, have you felt that all your time was spent on unimportant items, leaving the task you truly cared about undone? Perhaps there just isn’t enough time in the day to get things done. Or is there?

In a recent NPR article, psychotherapist Niro Feliciano revealed that people are largely unaware of how they spend their days. We blindly do things of low value while neglecting the more important items. It began for her with a personal epiphany about her own choices. As the article writers share:

“I remember sitting in my office. I had done eight sessions, several with adolescents. And I said, ‘When was the last time I spent 45 minutes listening to one of my kids?'” she says.

She realized that how she wanted to spend her time and how she was really spending it “were very much misaligned,” she says. “I did not see enough of a reflection of things that brought me joy and contentment.”

Photo by Alexander Popadin on Pexels.com

To help herself and her clients make better choices, Feliciano encourages conducting a time audit. The process is simple, but it requires attention to details.

Make a list of the people and the activities that are the most important to you. It might be loved ones like your partner, your kids or your bestie, and hobbies like reading, working out or video-chatting with your long-distance friends. 

Then do a time inventory. Where is your time really going each day? Are the lists matching up? You might find that a lot of your day is spent on obligations, chores and time-sucking activities.

Then look for ways to make your lists reflect each other. Where can you carve out more space for your family? Or set aside a moment for reading?

Once this is done, the next task is to find ways to add in the high value items to your day. Feliciano took her own advice, as she shared with the writers.

To make more time, you’ll need to set some boundaries, Feliciano says. “What are you doing that makes you feel resentful, depleted, exhausted?” And what can you do to limit yourself from those activities?

Feliciano found that she was spending a lot of unnecessary time scrolling on social media — but that wasn’t on her list of priorities, so she cut back.

To learn more about time audits and how to use them to get more value out of your day, please read the rest of the NPR article.

Reframing: A Solution to Most Problems?

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Do you know someone who is always in crisis?

Many people live their lives worrying about the load of problems that besiege them. They bemoan their fate and wonder why fate dealt them so many difficulties. Even the most optimistic people can fall victim to this mode of thinking. If you enter this trap is there a way out?

According to Darius Foroux, there is a simple, yet powerful way to escape pessimistic thinking. In an article on his website titled The Reframing Theory: The Solution to 95% of Your Problems, Foroux shares how changing the appearance of perceived problems in your mind can lead to better outcomes. This steams from an understanding of how labels are applied.

You have a label for everything in your life.

  • You are disciplined or undisciplined.
  • Successful or unsuccessful.
  • Healthy or unhealthy.
  • Happy or not.

These are the mental labels we use in our minds. They sound like facts, but they’re not.

They’re interpretations. And interpretations can be changed.

Darius Foroux

So how can interpretations be changed? The answer is to reframe the issue. Instead of accepting the first impression of a situation, see if it can be viewed from a different perspective. Foroux suggests the following exercise:

Positive thinking asks you to pretend bad things are good.

Reframing asks something different. It asks you to find the most accurate and useful interpretation of a situation.

Not the most flattering one. The most functional one.

There’s a difference between lying to yourself and choosing a better lens.

As an example, Foroux envisions someone who feels undisciplined and is beating themselves up over it.

Old frame: I lack willpower. Something is wrong with me.

New frame: My goals aren’t aligned with who I actually am, what I actually want, or what my life actually allows right now.

The old frame offers no solutions other than to try harder.

The new frame provides a way to analysis one’s actions and recommit to the goals set. It might even show that the reason no action has been taken is that the goals have no value. Therefore, resetting the goals with ones that inspire and excite the mind will lead to effortless action.

To learn more about how to apply reframing to your life, please read the rest of the article.

Doing More & Avoiding Burnout

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Have you ever heard a manager say that we need to do more with less?

Many workplaces lack the luxury of abundant staff and large budgets. These are work environments where everyone pitches in on multiple fronts. Often this means people work longer hours, sacrificing evenings and weekends away from their families to get the work done. While this might be needed for significant deadlines, that level of pace is unsustainable. It quickly leads to burnout. Therefore, is there a way to avoid the overwork trap and still reach the organization’s goals?

Recently, consultant Irina Bilenko shared her thoughts on LinkedIn in an article titled, Doing More With Less Without Burning Out Your Team. She regularly talks with nonprofits struggling to get things done and at the risk of wearing themselves out. Her initial observation on the problem is a simple one.

The phrase “do more with less” is often repeated in the nonprofit sector. But I think it’s misleading. If people are already working at full capacity, asking them to simply do more isn’t a sustainable answer.

The answer is not working harder. The answer is making it easier to focus on what matters most.

Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich on Pexels.com

Ramming through with grit and putting in extra hours is actually highly inefficient and wasteful. Instead, Irina believes that stepping back to examine the organization’s workflow leads to better productivity in the long run.

What I discovered was that the problem wasn’t effort. The problem was the system.

Work was held up by unnecessary approvals. Decisions took too long. Information wasn’t available when people needed it. Teams were solving the same problems over and over. Meetings filled calendars without producing decisions.

When those barriers were removed, something interesting happened.

People didn’t need to work harder. They suddenly had more capacity.

Irina found that improving the system starts with removing unnecessary items. Eliminating low value tasks and pointless meetings relieved tension and led to more success on the individual and organizational levels. For example, getting rid of producing pointless reports and streamlining levels of approval saved hours of time. This in turn allowed employees to enjoy their evenings and weekends, confident in the knowledge that they were accomplishing their goals.

To learn more from Irina on how improving systems can generate better results, I invite you to read the rest of her article.

Have You Rediscovered Reading?

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Summertime is the best time to return to the simple joy of reading.

This year the Palm Beach County Library System has launched the Rediscover Reading campaign. No matter where you live, we are encouraging everyone to pick up a book and tap into the many benefits of reading for pleasure. If you have never stopped reading, we invite you to expand your horizons and tap into new authors and genres. With so many choices, there is definitely a novel novel awaiting you!

It might seem counter-intuitive, but sitting in your quiet reading chair actually benefits your neighbors and friends. As our society wrestles with loneliness and separation, pleasure reading offers an affordable, evidence-based path for a better life. In fact, a growing body of research finds that reading leads to reduced stress, better sleep, enhanced empathy and improved well-being. Simultaneously, shared reading like book clubs and read-aloud sessions activate brain regions tied to social cognition and emotional connection. This counters feelings of isolation and distrust.

It’s simple. Reading for pleasure combines the private delight of enjoying a novel with the social lift from shared reflection.

Therefore, I challenge you to spend 15 minutes a day reading for pleasure. Then, once a week share your reading suggestions with others, whether a work, around the dinner table, or in your favorite online space. The more we talk and think about the books, the more engaged our minds become with the material and with others.

If you are not sure where to get your next book, remember that public libraries are ready and waiting to serve you. Not only do we offer traditional print books, but most libraries have a growing collection of eBooks. All of them are available through your library card. Don’t have one? No worries. Plan a trip to your local branch this week to get a card!

Photo by ArtHouse Studio on Pexels.com

Finally, I must put a debate to rest. Yes! Audiobooks count as reading. The act of listening to a book forces our minds to imagine scenes and view the world through the eyes of the characters. This is different from watching a movie or TV show where actors and camera angles guide your interpretation. Any type of read-aloud allows the listener to create the scenes in their mind, deepening the connection to the story.

The challenge is issued. This summer, put down your smartphone, turn off the TV, and step away from your computer. Instead dive into a good book. The benefits are worth it!

It’s Not About Project Management

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Do you have challenges with project management?

For knowledge workers, projects are the key items that they work on day in and day out. Yet very few people have thought deeply about what constitutes a project and the best way to tackle them. This can create a vague sense that projects can be handled more efficiently and effectively, but it is not obvious where to start.

Thankfully, David Allen of GTD fame has spent his career thinking deeply about how we actually work and the ways to do it better. In a recent blog post titled, You don’t have a project management problem (you have this instead)…and why it’s such a squishy area, he explores the idea that most people don’t have a clear understanding of their projects.

I was often asked by line managers and training people whether I had a good “project management” seminar for their people. My first response is, “what exactly do you mean by ‘project management’?” Very few have an immediately good answer. They’ve often just heard it as a need from their reports or their constituents. “Do you have people who need to know how to lay out a GANTT chart or detailed critical path for complex projects like constructing a building or implementing a new corporate information system? Or do you have people who feel overwhelmed with the sheer load of things to do, many of which can’t be finished in a single action step?” Usually, it’s some combination of the two, but mostly it’s the latter.

Allen has a very clear definition of a project. It is anything that requires more than one action to complete. These means that most workers have anywhere from 20-50 projects on their plate at a given time. Also, he believes stress related to projects does not arise from the tactics of doing them, but instead the overwhelm of all the potential tasks to do. Therefore, Allen sees two problems to solve. The first is that organizational approaches to project management are either too complex for the project or not encompassing enough. As he states in the piece:

Problem #1 – I’ve never seen any two of those projects that needed the same amount of planning or detailing of steps to get them under control. It ranges from three bullet points on the back of an envelope in a coffee shop (usually your most productive thinking) to days of intensive planning with a dozen people, pages of outlined steps, critical path, the works. So, most single “project management” model will either under- or over-plan most of your projects. There’s no one-size-fits-all.

To learn about the second problem and his overall conclusions on the topic, please read the rest of his post.

The Perils of Probability – The Monty Hall Problem

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Have you ever pondered any of these questions?

  • Should I buy that airline ticket now or wait to see if the price will drop?
  • Should I buy the extended warranty on my used car or risk possible repair costs?
  • Should I buy a ticket for the lottery since the jackpot is very high?

Day after day we have to make decisions based on probabilities. Some choices are as simple as packing an umbrella when it’s an 80% chance of rain. Others are more complicated like how to invest retirement account money amongst many fund options. With the rise of prediction markets, more and more people are putting their money down on sports gambling without fully understanding the odds. Alas, many of those people are losing their bets because humans are very bad at understanding probability.

To learn more about the risks of sport betting, listen to the latest season of the excellent podcast, Against the Rules, from Michael Lewis. (Note – as much as the sports betting commercials try to sell you on it, think twice before betting a parlay!)

I explored the challenges we have with understanding probabilities in an article several years ago called Deal or No Deal, Mr Hall! – How We Misunderstand Probability The centerpiece of the article concerns a much-discussed probability puzzle called The Monty Hall Problem. Here is how the problem is described.

You are a contest on Let’s Make a Deal. Your game is to pick one of three doors. Behind one is a new car and behind the other two are goats. (For purposes of play assume you want the car.) Monty Hall invites you to pick a door, so let’s say you choose Door #1. Monty, who knows what is behind each door, opens Door #3 to reveal a goat. Then he gives you the opportunity to switch your choice to Door #2. The question: Are your chances of winning the car better, worse, or no different if you switch doors?

Monty Hall - Game Show Host, from ABC TV
Monty Hall – Past Host of Let’s Make a Deal.

What is your answer?

To learn the right choice, please read the full article on the Efficient Librarian website. Just know in advance that even the smartest college professors got the logic wrong when they first pondered it!

If you are thinking The Monty Hall Problem is merely a fun little puzzle, know that the ramifications of logic errors in other aspects of our lives are significant. Failing to understand probabilities can lead to poor decisions. As I state in the article:

We face a whole host of probabilistic situations throughout our lives. For example, is it worthwhile to buy extended warranties on appliances? To make an informed decision we have to know the probability that the appliance will fail and the projected cost of an uncovered repair. How about the weather? The accuracy of a five-day forecast is much lower than tomorrow’s forecast. Yet we often treat the two forecasts with the same value. Is it a better investment to buy stock in a single company or purchase a market index fund? The truth is that individual stocks are statistically more volatile than a weighted market index, yet most of business articles focus on finding the next home run stock pick.

If you enjoyed reading about The Monty Hall Problem, then I invite you to explore the follow-up article focusing on the logic behind the game show, Deal or No Deal. In that piece, we learn the important lesson that possibilities are not probabilities!

Enjoy and good luck with your next decision!

Can You Manufacture Your Own Luck?

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Having experienced St. Patrick’s Day a few weeks ago, you may have heard the phrase “The Luck of the Irish.” Perhaps you know people who say they are naturally lucky or unlucky. Most importantly, do you believe that fortune plays an active role in your life and if so, is there anything you can do to change fate?

Over at Forte Labs, Tiago published a guest post from Nir Eyal, author of the book, Beyond Belief. In the book, Eyal explores whether luck is an actual thing. What he discovered is that it is not a gift or curse from the Gods, but instead a specific way to view and interact with the world. In short, luck is not chance. As he describes in his Forte Labs post.

Dr. Richard Wiseman spent over a decade studying why some people feel perpetually “lucky” while others always feel “unlucky.” His research revealed something startling: so-called lucky individuals don’t actually experience more good fortune. They simply see more of it.

Nir Eyal

Assuming this is true, Eyal claims there are three specific powers that everyone has to generate their own form of luck. The first one is to increase attention on the world around you by noticing what you see.

Your beliefs act as perceptual filters, determining what information makes it through to your conscious awareness and what gets dismissed as irrelevant.

Lucky people train themselves to look wider. They notice the peripheral. They stay curious about the unexpected.

Beyond the three specific powers (read the post to learn what they are), Eyal lists five practices that will help generate more luck in your life. One of them is to prime your attention daily.

Each morning, ask yourself: What opportunities might I overlook today? This simple question shifts your attentional filter from narrow task-focus to broader opportunity-awareness.

To improve your fortune, learn about the other two powers and the remaining four practices by reading the rest of the post on Forte Labs.