How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life pdfdrive com

R
EACHING
 I
NSIGHT
When you need a flash of inspiration on a thorny topic, try the following:
Pose a question.
When you’re feeling blocked, ask yourself: “What
would be a totally different approach to this?” “What would be a great
way of going about solving this?” “If I knew the answer, what would it
be?”
Refresh and reboot.
Try shifting your focus to a different type of task
for a while, before returning to the original issue.
Switch views.
Try a different way of describing or looking at the issue
you’re working on, and notice what patterns or insights come to the
surface:
• Write about it in longhand for ten minutes.
• “Rubber duck” it: explain the issue to someone unfamiliar with it.
• Create a physical map of your issue, 
e.g.
using sticky notes.
Find an analogy.
Expose yourself to a different type of stimulus (e.g.
observe another organization’s ways of working; view websites or
images from fields different from yours), and ask yourself: How is this
like
the topic I’m working on? How is it 
different
? What new idea does
that suggest I could explore?

---

TWELVE
Making Wise Decisions
If the last chapter was about creativity—the process of opening up fresh ideas
and possibilities—wisdom is its complement: narrowing down the field and
making shrewd choices between options. And although wisdom might seem a
grand word, it isn’t necessarily about making bet-the-company decisions. If you
think about it, our days are full of opportunities to make wise (or foolish)
choices. When tackling your next piece of work, for example, where should you
start? Whom should you get involved? Which approach should you take?
Choose rashly, and you can end up with complaints and setbacks that take the
shine off the day. Choose sagely, and the chips will tend to fall your way. Your
colleagues might even be moved to say, “Hmm, that’s a good point,” or “My
goodness, you handled 
that
well.” Bravo you.
What does behavioral science tell us about how to achieve this kind of
everyday wisdom? Basically, this: we need to take care to engage our brain’s
deliberate system when we’re dealing with things that matter. Remember that the
deliberate system is the network that’s responsible for analyzing, exerting self-
discipline, and thinking ahead—and those are the skills we need when we’re
trying to exert good judgment. If we don’t consciously engage our deliberate
system, our automatic system will quietly take control and rush us to the easiest
answer available. Which might mean saying the first thing that comes to mind in
a delicate meeting, or blindly copying what’s always been done in the past. After
all, it’s the job of our brain’s automatic system to minimize the amount of
mental energy we expend—but often, the easiest choice isn’t the right one.