Behavior Hacks
I agree with Dave Ramsey when he says success comes a little bit from head knowledge but mostly from behavior. When I disagree with the guilt-fear-and-pep-rallies approach to behavior modification, it behooves me to mention the approach I use instead. One can take the computer hacker approach to one's own brain.
Hackers are not content to use their property in the way the seller intended. They examine the innards, overclock it, give it more power, and make it do things the inventor never thought of. A hacker is not 0wnz0red by limitations built into the hardware. He or she 0wnz the hardware.
That's not the only way that behavior hacking is like other hacker creations. Instead of being preached to you from a centralized source on a stage with paying for ticket admission and paying for books and paying for courses, the shortcuts and heuristics for behavior modification are tossed at you for free on the internet in a hundred variations.
Neurological science is advancing at a surprising rate, and the articles on the internet are aflush with the results. It seems like every day the del.icio.us Most Popular list has a new example. Web popularity is not guaranteed to weed out the stupidest of the self-help, but there's plenty of well-informed practical advice that just works. Some call the techniques Life Hacks. Some call them Mind Hacks.
There are hacks for habit breaking, habit forming, depression, sleep, procrastination, motivation, productivity, learning, creativity, thinking, and a slew of related topics.
Comments
phecda on Oct. 24, 2005 8:40 PM
I see you pointed at my friends blog for "sleep" -- are you saying it's so dull, it's sleep inducing? ;-)
drkelso on Oct. 24, 2005 8:49 PM
he pointed at mine too.
phecda on Oct. 24, 2005 9:00 PM
OK, so what's the html that points back to the readers friends link? I'm now officially amused and curious
matt-arnold on Oct. 24, 2005 9:27 PM
The secret is to leave the quotation marks empty when you make a hyperlink. Livejournal interprets this as the friends page of the person reading it, if they're logged in!
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