Summary: <br> <br> Thanks to the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist and father of behavioral<br> economics, Daniel Kahneman, the scientific community has a deeper<br> understanding of well-being. To wit, Kahneman revealed that humans live<br> with two minds--our experiencing and remembering selves. In this episode<br> I'd like to discuss these two selves and how it relates to your personal<br> productivity.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> EXPERIENCING SELF<br> <br> <br> <br> The experiencing self is that which answers the question, "How do I feel<br> right now?"…what you sense is most important to your experiencing self.<br> Sensory-specific, the experiencing self is mostly focused on the present<br> view of sights, sounds, smells, physical sensations, and tastes. <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> REMEMBERING SELF<br> <br> <br> <br> The remembering self, on the other hand, is a past-focused mind and makes<br> decisions intuitively based on what our brain memorializes of our<br> experiences. It answers the question, "What happened?"...what you perceive<br> happened becomes the story you<br> remember and reenforces it as reality.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> One way of looking at it is that the experiencing self<br> renders facts now while the<br> remembering self tells stories about<br> what happened.<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> YOUR PRODUCTIVE SELF<br> <br> <br> <br> Do you remember the last time you worked on a really difficult project or<br> task? Well, it turns out that Kahneman's research explains why we dread,<br> procrastinate and even remember projects or tasks as difficult. You see,<br> Kahneman writes about moment-utility (which I've provided a link to his<br> paper explaining it below); the idea is to capture much more in-the-moment<br> data as you experience a situation, such as working on a really difficult<br> project or task. It turns out that when your experiencing self does the<br> tracking and analysis, you have a better assessment of your<br> experiences and you also have a better<br> feeling about positive outcomes. Using Kahneman's findings, I recommend<br> that when you're dealing with a difficult project or task to answer these<br> three series of questions:<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> 1. "How do I<br> physically feel right now?" (The likelihood is that physically you're<br> fine.)<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> 2. "What does<br> success, accomplishment or complete look like for me in the next five to 15<br> minutes?" (This gives you a more realistic view of the project or<br> task.)<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> <br> 3. At the point of<br> ending a project, task or a period of finishing some part of either, ask<br> yourself (and even better, write it down somewhere), "how good/accomplished<br> do I feel? What have I learned that I can use in the future?" (Ending on a<br> positive message will give your remembering self something to look back on<br> to equate your productivity with a positive affect.)<br> <br> <br> <br> <br> You see, ending on a high note, or on a less negative tone, than the<br> initial upstart difficulty will inevitably teach your remembering self<br> that difficult projects or tasks usually only start off that way. And,<br> even if there are challenges along the way, it's usually only difficult<br> in peak periods. This rewriting of your brain patterns will make you<br> leap at new challenges instead of sulking when you look at your project<br> or task l
