Keith Schacht’s Weblog

The range of options that most people consider available to them is much narrower than the truth. If they can’t find a job description or an enrollment form, they assume it’s not an option. Or if a person of authority tells them, “I’m sorry, that’s not an option,” too many people are too willing to accept that as truth. Whenever I hear the three pre-defined options, I assume those are just suggestions and want to know what’s behind door #4. There are always other options.

I was telling a friend about this and rattling off some examples of door-#4 thinking. Do you have an example of your own?

The range of options that most people consider available to them is much narrower than the truth. If they can’t find a job description or an enrollment form, they assume it’s not an option. Or if a person of authority tells them, “I’m sorry, that’s not an option,” too many people are too willing to accept that as truth. Whenever I hear the three pre-defined options, I assume those are just suggestions and want to know what’s behind door #4. There are always other options.

I was telling a friend about this and rattling off some examples of door-#4 thinking. Do you have an example of your own?

Here are the few I gave:

1. When I go to a restaurant and see the menu, if I don’t see anything I like I remember it’s just a kitchen back there—it’s possible for them to make things not listed. If I’m in the mood for something in particular, I simply ask. Worst case they’ll just tell me no.
2. When I was in college and there were required classes that I didn’t want to take, I figured out that I could skip the classes by testing out of them. I just asked the department how I could demonstrate mastery and typically they’d tell me if I could pass the final exam they’d give me class credit, but not a grade. It was much easier to study for a couple days to pass a final than to sit through a whole semester of soul-killing lectures and wading my way through boring assignments. Avoiding required classes was door #4 that most students assumed was not possible. I also applied this trick to enroll in classes that I wanted to take but were full. Even a full class always has open seats because someone doesn’t show each day. I’d happily attend every class and do every assignment that was interesting, skipping the ones that seemed pointless. All I had to do was pass the final to make the university happy. It didn’t matter that I was not enrolled in the class.
3. A friend told me a story about how he got his current job. Let’s call him John Smith. The company was interested in hiring him but he had a very specific view of the job he wanted to do: he wanted to help with certain aspects of the project but not others and he wanted to work from home on his own time. When they didn’t agree he tried again and proposed they hire John Smith Consulting instead and he outsourced the pieces of the project he didn’t want to do to someone else. They were okay with that solution. Again, he just asked for door #4.
4. Another friend told me how his wife wants to attend a masters program in another city but he loves his job and doesn’t want to leave. It’s not uncommon for one person in a relationship to sacrifice their career for the other. Neither of them wanted to sacrifice their career so they came up with a solution. Monday through Thursday he did his job as normal. Friday he’d fly to home #2 in another city where his wife was living and spend 3 days of every week there. This may not be the most convenient living arrangement, but lots of people can pull this off for a couple years. Get a smaller apartment in city #1, sign up for a frequent flyer program, and get ready to explore a new city. This win-win behind door #4 is an option that many would have never considered.
5. My wife and I have always been up front with each other about the things that we don’t like doing. Inevitably there are things that are on both of our don’t-like lists: laundry, cooking, cleaning the house, random errands, etc. Most people solve this problem by the compromise: I’ll do A if you do B. But between a housekeeper, personal assistant, TaskRabbit, Amazon Prime, etc, neither of us do things that neither of us want to do. The typical objection of hiring a personal assistant or housekeeper is that it costs too much, but it’s all about being clear on your priorities. Getting a smaller apartment, cheaper car (or using Zipcar), eating out a little less often—all of these were preferred options for us. If you can squeeze a few hundred a month out of a budget you create options for yourself. You can find talented people for $10–15 per hour on Craigslist, maybe remotely in another city, if needed. And 5-10 hours per week of someone’s time goes a long way. Wouldn’t you love 5–10 hours more time each week to do things you truly enjoy doing? That’s the option behind door #4.

Look for door #4 when you don’t like the options available to you.

If you walk into a casino and on a whim bet your entire life savings and you win. Was it a good decision? No. Even though many would congratulate you on a job well done, it was a bad decision. Or the opposite example of simple expected value. You make a decision that has a 90% chance you’ll lose $5, but a 10% chance you’ll receive $1000. Each time you make the same decision, the expected value of that decision is $95.50, even the times you lose!

Any individual decisions can be badly thought through, and yet be successful, or exceedingly well thought through, but be unsuccessful, because the recognized possibility of failure in fact occurs. But over time, more thoughtful decision-making will lead to better overall results, and more thoughtful decision-making can be encouraged by evaluating decisions on how well they were made rather than on outcome.

If you walk into a casino and on a whim bet your entire life savings and you win. Was it a good decision? No. Even though many would congratulate you on a job well done, it was a bad decision. Or the opposite example of simple expected value. You make a decision that has a 90% chance you’ll lose $5, but a 10% chance you’ll receive $1000. Each time you make the same decision, the expected value of that decision is $95.50, even the times you lose!

Any individual decisions can be badly thought through, and yet be successful, or exceedingly well thought through, but be unsuccessful, because the recognized possibility of failure in fact occurs. But over time, more thoughtful decision-making will lead to better overall results, and more thoughtful decision-making can be encouraged by evaluating decisions on how well they were made rather than on outcome.

The above quote is from this section of a book, Be The House, that a friend sent me. I’ve been thinking this way for awhile, although I would not have said it quite so eloquently.

The swing for the fences success in Silicon Valley get a disproportionate amount of attention, but over the years I’ve been surprised at the number of very successful entrepreneurs I’ve met who quietly make a million or more in profit a year or have had a string of small to medium business that they’ve sold. This doesn’t mean, don’t think big, just be diligent, focus on facts, and tip the odds in your favor—be the house.

I’ve noticed that over the course of a week that over-working and working smarter are both self-reinforcing. To put it another way: the less I work, the less work I have to do; the more I work, the more work I have to do.

I’ve found that during periods where I have a lot I need to get done, I work harder. I dive in right away, take less breaks, and put in more hours. Often this is necessary for a short period of time, but it can be dangerous. By over-working the first thing that gets cut is time for reflection. By cutting this thinking time I’m less likely to see those smarter ways to get things done. I don’t cut off tasks that drag, I miss an opportunity to delegate, I miss a clever solution that solves a problem. All of this ends up causing the work to take longer creating more total work for myself, which makes it more likely that I’ll over-work the next day beginning a vicious cycle.

I’ve noticed that over the course of a week that over-working and working smarter are both self-reinforcing. To put it another way: the less I work, the less work I have to do; the more I work, the more work I have to do.

I’ve found that during periods where I have a lot I need to get done, I work harder. I dive in right away, take less breaks, and put in more hours. Often this is necessary for a short period of time, but it can be dangerous. By over-working the first thing that gets cut is time for reflection. By cutting this thinking time I’m less likely to see those smarter ways to get things done. I don’t cut off tasks that drag, I miss an opportunity to delegate, I miss a clever solution that solves a problem. All of this ends up causing the work to take longer creating more total work for myself, which makes it more likely that I’ll over-work the next day beginning a vicious cycle.

The same pattern is true for working smarter. By taking a step back from my work I review whats on my list and figure out how to cut things, I delegate early to get a project in motion, and I reflect on hard problems to find shortcuts. All of this ends up reducing the overall amount of work, which gives me more time the next day to work smarter. It’s a virtuous cycle.

Have other people had this same experience? I try to notice when either cycle is happening to me so I can work to break or embrace it, but its not always easy to catch myself.

Have you ever observed that you can live through the same event with someone but afterwards you’re reflecting and the two of you experienced something totally different? What you choose to focus on determines the experience that you have.

You have a lot of work you need to get done. You sit down to eat dinner and quickly eat your food, you aren’t even tasting it because you’re mind is thinking about what you need to get done.

Have you ever observed that you can live through the same event with someone but afterwards you’re reflecting and the two of you experienced something totally different? What you choose to focus on determines the experience that you have.

You have a lot of work you need to get done. You sit down to eat dinner and quickly eat your food, you aren’t even tasting it because you’re mind is thinking about what you need to get done.

You ride the bus with someone each day and after a year of doing so you realize you hardly know anything about them. All your small talk about the weather, the day’s errands, the bus driver, and you never thought to get to know the real person.

Most of what you do in life you’re doing on autopilot. This is okay, it has to be this way; your attention is so limited that you would be unable to get much done if you were in capable of automatizing complex behaviors. It’s this ability to automatize which allows you to accomplish ever-increasingly advanced things.

However, the consequence of this ability to rely on autopilot, is that we cease to be intentional about our application of our conscious focus. After automatizing doing something well, it’s easy to simply rely on that automatization and let our attention mind wander in the process.

Another example. A lot of people spend too much time over-optimizing things. Your confronted with a situation that has a lot of options and you spend way to much time applying your conscious focus to evaluating each and every alternative but the situation doesn’t warrant it. Frankly, you would have been satisfied with any one of the options and you should have picked the first one and spent your time doing something else.

The most limited resource you have isn’t time, it’s your attention. Be careful what you apply your attention to. Apply it to those situations that you really care about, that are worth your attention. Don’t bother to apply it to those that don’t.

Know which situations you should be intentional about and which situations you should simply act out of habit. The ability to act out of habit is an ability which should not be abused.