psychology

But it wasn’t Google who invented this practice. They actually borrowed it from 3M, whose own “15 Percent Rule” dates back to 1948.5 In the case of 3M, engineers get to spend 15 percent of their time pursuing projects of their own devising. For a company with a research budget of over $1 billion, allowing employees the freedom to experiment with 15

The key to a good life is not giving a fuck about more; it’s giving a fuck about less, giving a fuck about only what is true and immediate and important.

You will never get into trouble by admitting that you may be wrong. That will stop all argument and inspire your opponent to be just as fair and open and broadminded as you are. It will make him want to admit that he, too, may be wrong.

In an experiment to study this phenomenon, a researcher asked people queueing up to use a copy machine whether she could skip the line. She found that if she gave a reason – “May I skip the line because I’m in a rush?” – 94 percent of people complied with her request.

If she gave no reason, only 60 percent complied.

But, fascinatingly, if she gave a

For Humans, mental accounts are a form of narrow framing; they keep things under control and manageable by a finite mind.

Compliance professionals like salespeople can use, for example, the lowball trick to try to generate inner change in us. A car dealer might make such an astoundingly cheap offer on a car that we immediately decide to buy it. The dealer knows full well that, during the test drive, we will then independently construct several other reasons to buy the

Even worse, it frequently bred confidence but not skill.

To understand madness is to understand genius.

Doesn’t matter if you’re actually guilty or not: it’ll get a confession out of most people.