BBC Future column: Why we love to hoard
Here’s last week’s column from BBC Future. The original is here. It’s not really about hoarding, its about the endowment effect and a really lovely piece of work that helped found the field of behavioural economics (and win Daniel Kahneman a Nobel prize). Oh, and I give some advice on how to de-clutter, lifehacker-style. Question: How do you make something instantly twice as expensive? Answer: By giving it away. This might sound like a nonsensical riddle, but if you’ve ever felt overly possessive about your regular parking space, your pen, or your Star Wars box sets, then you’re experiencing some elements behind the psychology of ownership. This riddle actually describes a phenomenon called the Endowment Effect. You can see how the endowment effect escalates – how else can you explain the boxes of cassette tapes, shoes or mobile phones that fill several shelves of your room… or even several rooms? No trade Classic economics states that the students should begin to trade with each other.
How to Change Your Life: A User’s Guide
‘You will never change your life until you change something you do daily.’ ~Mike Murdock By Leo Babauta Start with a simple statement: what do you want to be? Are you hoping to someday be a writer, a musician, a designer, a programmer, a polyglot, a carpenter, a manga artist, an entrepreneur, an expert at something? How do you get there? Do you set yourself a big goal to complete by the end of the year, or in three months? I’m going to lay down the law here, based on many many experiments I’ve done in the last 7 years: nothing will change unless you make a daily change. I’ve tried weekly action steps, things that I do every other day, big bold monthly goals, lots of other permutations. If you’re not willing to make it a daily change, you don’t really want to change your life in this way. So make a daily change. How to Turn an Aspiration Into a Daily Change Let’s name a few aspirations: How do you turn those lofty ideas into daily changes? You get the idea. How to Implement Daily Changes
The Salvation Army and Goodwill: Inside the places your clothes go when you donate them
Spencer Platt/Getty. It was early morning at the Quincy Street Salvation Army, an easy-to-miss location tucked away on a Brooklyn side street. The only donations that had come in so far were books, an entire truck full from one single apartment. Charitable clothing donations usually roll in with fits and starts, with the changing of the seasons and at the end of the year, when people are looking for tax write-offs. It was on a weekday morning in the middle of the fall, the off-hours for clothing donations. But I didn’t have to witness someone pulling up their car and shoveling bags full of clothes from the trunk. Michael Noneza, otherwise known as “Maui,” one of the donation center’s assistant supervisors, bounced into the warehouse. The Quincy Street Salvation Army may be on a quiet out-of-the-way street, but it is the main distribution center serving eight Salvation Army locations in Brooklyn and Queens. Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP/Getty Images.
7 Secrets of the Super Organized
A few years ago, my life was a mess. So was my house, my desk, my mind. Then I learned, one by one, a few habits that got me completely organized. Am I perfect? So what’s the secret? Are these obvious principles? If your life is a mess, like mine was, I don’t recommend trying to get organized all in one shot. So here are the 7 habits: Reduce before organizing. If you take your closet full of 100 things and throw out all but the 10 things you love and use, now you don’t need a fancy closet organizer. How to reduce: take everything out of a closet or drawer or other container (including your schedule), clean it out, and only put back those items you truly love and really use on a regular basis. Write it down now, always.
10 simple ways to save yourself from messing up your life - Step
Stop taking so much notice of how you feel. How you feel is how you feel. It’ll pass soon. What you’re thinking is what you’re thinking. It’ll go too. Adrian Savage is a writer, an Englishman, and a retired business executive, in that order. Read full content
Ten Reasons People Resist Change - Rosabeth Moss Kanter
by Rosabeth Moss Kanter | 12:00 PM September 25, 2012 Leadership is about change, but what is a leader to do when faced with ubiquitous resistance? Resistance to change manifests itself in many ways, from foot-dragging and inertia to petty sabotage to outright rebellions. The best tool for leaders of change is to understand the predictable, universal sources of resistance in each situation and then strategize around them. Loss of control. Excess uncertainty. Surprise, surprise! Everything seems different. Loss of face. Concerns about competence. More work. Ripple effects. Past resentments. Sometimes the threat is real. Although leaders can’t always make people feel comfortable with change, they can minimize discomfort.
25 Beauty Tips Reusing Household Items – Homemade Beauty Tips on ELLE
1. Old Buttons Repurpose spare buttons by using them to keep pairs of earrings together: Most buttons have at least two holes in them, so simply place an earring in each opening to neatly store when not wearing. Photo: Jupiter Images 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25.
Top 10 Ways Your Brain Is Sabotaging You (and How to Beat It)
@Firesphere: Not that I don't believe you, but do you have a source for that? @inverts: I did, it was an article on a Dutch website. I'm searching for an English source. It was testet with CAT scans etcetera, the male brain showed indeed no activity when asked to "shut your eyes and calm down, think of as less as possible" Where the female brain kept being active. *Searches on* A funny side-fact on this: "Female" gays, seem to never be able to "shutdown" where as "male" lesbians were able to completely stop thinking. Sorry, I am unable to find the article I got this information from. If I find it again, I'll let it know offcourse. @Firesphere: The article suggests from that information, that those with a "masculine" mindset (for lack of a better term) can shut their brains down; "feminine" brains always have at least one task running then?
50 Life Hacks to Simplify your World
Life hacks are little ways to make our lives easier. These low-budget tips and trick can help you organize and de-clutter space; prolong and preserve your products; or teach you something (e.g., tie a full Windsor) that you simply did not know before. Most of these came from a great post on tumblr. There is also a great subreddit ‘r/lifehacks‘ with some fantastic tips as well. 20. Separate egg yolks like a boss 40. Sources – muxedo task: 99 Life Hacks to make your life easier! If you enjoyed this post, the Sifter highly recommends:
50 Things Everyone Should Know - StumbleUpon
by Mark and Angel Self-reliance is a vital key to living a healthy, productive life. To be self-reliant one must master a basic set of skills, more or less making them a jack of all trades. While not totally comprehensive , here is a list of 50 things everyone should know how to do. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. Read the rest of the article
