It Concentrates his Mind Wonderfully

Billionaire Ron Shaich founded Panera
Bread (Abramsom/Getty/WSJ)

If New Year's resolutions haven't been effective, try thinking of yourself on your deathbed. Ron Shaich refers to these envisionings as "premortems." [bold added]

It’s a habit that began as a response to the death of his parents in the 1990s. His mother was at peace with herself when she died, he says. But his father was “racked with regret and remorse” about decisions he made and the opportunities he missed. What he took away from their experiences was the last lesson that his parents would teach him—and the most profound of them all.

Don’t wait until the end to decide if you are proud of your life. Do it before it’s too late. Do it while you can still do something about it.

“I realized that the time to be having that review was not in the ninth inning with two outs,” he told me. “It was in the seventh inning, the fifth inning and third inning.”

Ron Shaich did not invent the term:

In business, the concept of the premortem was coined by cognitive psychologist Gary Klein, and the late Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman called it “a brilliant idea.” The goal is to identify all the potential sources of failure on a project to improve the chances of success—to imagine how and why things might go wrong instead of explaining after they have gone wrong. “So that the project can be improved,” as Klein once put it, “rather than autopsied.

A premortem can focus the mind better than composing yet another list of resolutions.

Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.--Samuel Johnson

Manifest Destiny

(From Cambridge dictionary)

There's an irritating self-help phrase that thankfully one doesn't see much of anymore--"controlling your own destiny" (by definition you cannot change your destiny/fate)--but the sentiment, however awkwardly stated, is clear: achieving one's goal requires planning and execution and now many people add something else, manifesting.

Visualizing the success you want to achieve, or manifesting, took off this year.

Go online, and seemingly everyone is making vision boards, writing down their goals repeatedly and saying them aloud like a mantra.

Singer Dua Lipa swore by it to achieve big goals, and Cambridge Dictionary named “manifest” its word of the year. In the first eight months of 2024, there were more than 130,000 searches for it on the dictionary’s website. On TikTok, the hashtag #manifesting has 1.6 million posts and #manifestation has 6.5 million.

Some psychologists say its current meaning, which involves visualizations and affirmations to make something happen, can be traced to the bestselling 2006 book “The Secret.” Its recent resurgence reflects a desire for people to exert control over their lives, even when the outcome might be largely out of their hands...

Successful people have long worked to visualize the outcome they wanted or repeated positive phrases to achieve a goal. But recently, as more people have taken it on, they say they have learned a key lesson: If you don’t couple manifesting with action, it can be a waste.

What distinguises manifesting is the picturing of the goal before one plans and executes. Your humble blogger didn't do much visualization during his productive years and undoubtedly could have accomplished more than he did. But he...I...ended up happy in ways that I did not envision. Manifesting can help, but it isn't for everybody, especially if life is more journey than goal.

Melted Like the Glaze

Why did Krispy Kreme diminish in popularity? Answers range from over-saturation, competition from Dunkin' Donuts, and high prices, but I suspect that for many like us it was the desire to limit carbohydrate intake.

When someone gave us two boxes, years of self-control melted like the glaze on a warm doughnut. Thank goodness there were other people around to share in the bounty, else it would have been ugly.

It's Only January, So There's Still Time

Having made little progress on New Year's resolutions (broad categories: health, work, organization), I am receptive to advice on "how to stop being lazy and get things done."

Georgetown University Professor Cal Newport :

To-Do Lists Are Evil. Schedule Everything.

Assume You’re Going Home at 5:30, Then Plan Your Day Backwards

Make A Plan For The Entire Week

Do Very Few Things, But Be Awesome At Them

Less Shallow Work, Focus On The Deep Stuff

Can't hurt to give it a try. I'll start next Sunday :)

Morgen, Morgen, Nur Nicht Heute

It's tempting to mock social scientists who study productivity, then make pronouncements such as "the key step in getting things done is to get started."

Once the laughter subsides, we may discover that researchers have something useful to say about what makes us stop dithering and take action. The trick is simple: get our minds to view a task "implementally," i.e., in the present, though the actual deadline could be months away:

the key that unlocks the implemental mode lies in how people categorise time. They suggest that tasks are more likely to be viewed with an implemental mindset if an imposed deadline is cognitively linked to "now"—a so-called like-the-present scenario.

Your humble observer read this item last week and was going to make a joke about linking to it only today, but the Economist editor already came up with a similar observation:

Note: The text for this final Babbage post was originally submitted some four weeks ago. The editor claims full responsibility for procrastinating over the post's production and publication, blaming his conception of time for the delay.

A Good Year

In 2012 I accomplished some of my goals but fell short on a number of others.

I traveled, renewed relationships, completed consulting projects, and put in more volunteer hours. I didn't exercise as much as I had hoped, nor did I clear much clutter or finish more than a few continuing-education courses.

Coming down with the shingles, a painful, but not life-threatening condition, was a valuable reminder to pay attention to personal health, the absence of which would make attaining other goals much more difficult. After four months the symptoms are nearly gone.

In the new year, in addition to the usual resolutions, I resolve not to feel guilty about not accomplishing them. Guilt can be a useful prod, but dwelling on failure detracts from life's pleasure.

Above all, thank you, dear reader, for sharing this journey with me. May our walk together continue a while longer.  © 2012 Stephen Yuen

New Year's Eve: Tempted by That New Car Smell

For the past month I’ve been toying with the idea of availing myself of the new car discounts that have been so heavily advertised that you couldn’t avoid hearing about them. Not only are cars cheap(er), the cost of operation is a lot less now that fuel costs have dropped more than 50% from their highs. I would be doing my civic duty by stimulating the economy.

And of course there was a tax angle: if a new car was bought by year-end and used entirely in my business, I could get a 2008 depreciation deduction of nearly $11,000 (this amount is proportionately lower if business use is between 50% and 100%). But this purchase would come with a big rope attached: I would have to maintain careful driving records for at least the next five years and keep my personal mileage below 50%.

I reluctantly concluded that we don’t really “need” a new car, since our family has four functioning vehicles. If in 2009 I hope to reduce the material clutter and time-draining obligations from the calendar, buying a new car is a step in the wrong direction. The checks to the Department of Treasury and the Franchise Tax Board will be thousands of dollars larger on April 15th, but I won’t look back.

My New Year’s Eve was filled with anxiety and frustration, but in the end there was clarity. So it was a Happy New Year after all. © 2009 Stephen Yuen

Happy Thanksgiving

Philosopher-mathematician Bertrand Russell said that human happiness consisted of four ingredients: health, freedom from material want, warm personal relations, and successful work. On this Thanksgiving Day there is currently no pressing concern in any of these areas, and, in accordance with Lord Russell’s formula, in my daily life I am reasonably happy.

Regarding disappointments, I have only myself to blame. I wish that I exercised more, that I made better investment decisions, that I was a more giving and communicative friend, and that I was better at self-promotion so that my outstanding abilities would be more recognized at work (:>). But there’s still time to correct these mistakes.

On this Thanksgiving Day, I remember those who are gone and am reminded that life itself is the greatest gift. Living near one of the most beautiful cities in the world is just icing on the cake. As you reflect upon your own life, may you be blessed with a similar attitude of gratitude. © 2007 Stephen Yuen