"If she thinks she’s incapable, she’ll prove it correct—whether it has anything to do with the stars and moon or not. Her inflexible self-identification denies her the chance to improve her life."

"Words are powerful. Linguistic research shows that language shapes people and culture; it can also give us insight into ourselves and our behavior."

"research about children and the labels we ascribe to them shows just how influential words can be. Labeling not only affects how children see themselves and how they are treated but also limits their potential."

"The study concluded that teachers’ positive perception of students correlated to those students’ high performance on intellectual and academic tests. In contrast, teachers’ negative perceptions would lead to low performance from students. The labels the children received became a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy."

"Using verbs to identify ourselves is an effective method for releasing “trapped priors”—a term in psychology for a perception of reality that’s tainted, or trapped, by past experiences."

"By focusing on our behaviors, not fixed characteristics, we can release harmful perceptions of ourselves that hold us back from trying methods that might improve our lives"

"In a 2020 study, 72% of people said they feel happier after a spontaneous act. Those who described themselves as a “spontaneous person” were 40% more likely to consider themselves a “happy person.”"

"the key to spontaneity is timeboxing, a powerful method for getting things done that involves planning out periods of time each day to focus on distinct tasks."

"If we don’t plan our time, someone else will. Scheduling spontaneity doesn’t lessen the joy of spontaneity; it enables it. You still have the freedom to do whatever strikes you in the moment — even more so because you know that’s exactly what you intended to do."

"Ask yourself why spontaneity is important to you: How does it help you become the person you want to be?"

"Then, turn your values into time by creating a weekly calendar template for your perfect week."

"The Hook Model is a way of describing a user’s interactions with a product as they pass through four phases: a trigger to begin using the product, an action to satisfy the trigger, a variable reward for the action, and some type of investment that, ultimately, makes the product more valuable to the user. As the user goes through these phases, he builds habits in the process."

"habit-forming companies get users to cue themselves to action by attaching their services to the users’ daily routines and emotions."

"First-to-Mind Wins"

"startups manufacture desire by guiding users through a series of experiences designed to create habits. I call these experiences “Hooks,” and the more often users run through them, the more likely they are to self-trigger."

"The cycle in the Hook Model is comprised of a Trigger, Action, Reward, and Investment. As the consumer passes through these phases, he builds habits in the process. After the cycle is complete, his habits have been reinforced and the product even has more value to him."

"Triggers come in two types: external and internal."

"The internal trigger becomes part of their routine behavior and the habit is formed."

"After the trigger comes the intended action. Here, companies leverage two pulleys of human behavior – motivation and ability."

"Variable schedules of reward are one of the most powerful tools that companies use to hook users. Research shows that levels of dopamine surge when the brain is expecting a reward, just ask any primate."

"The investment generally comes in the form of asking the user to give some combination of time, data, effort, social capital or money."

"The investment implies an action that improves the service for the next go-around. Inviting friends, stating preferences, building virtual assets, and learning to use new features are all commitments that improve the service for the user."

"Companies need to know how to harness the power of Hooks to improve peoples’ lives"

"The German writer and philosopher Goethe believed he could predict someone’s future based on one simple fact. “If I know how you spend your time,” he wrote, “then I know what might become of you.”"

"Either way, the best way to draw up a draft of who you want to be is to home in on the characteristics you want to embody—also known as your values."

"Listing your values and the activities that push you to meet them reveals any gaps between how you spend your time and who you want to become."

"Too often, people don’t make time for their values."

"But here’s the thing: Your life in the future isn’t going to look the way you want it to unless you take control of your time and attention."

"The best way to make our ideal future come to fruition is to turn values into time."

"Timeboxing, a well-studied time and attention management technique, facilitates that. It involves reserving specific periods in your calendar for traction, the activities you planned to do in advance to live out your values."

"But productivity myths hold you back. They aren’t just inaccurate—they have the potential to hinder your productivity rather than help."

"Myth: Motivate Yourself to Focus with a Reward"

"For hundreds of years, we’ve believed that motivation is driven by reward and punishment. But the truth is, the root cause of human behavior is to relieve discomfort."

"Even when we think we’re seeking pleasure, we’re actually driven by the desire to free ourselves from the pain of wanting."

"If you feel discomfort, also known as an internal trigger, such as anxiousness or restlessness, when you try to accomplish a certain task, then an arbitrary external reward is not going to motivate you to overcome that discomfort."

"The idea is to pay such close attention to your task that you find new challenges you didn’t see before."

"Myth: The “Best” Productivity Apps Will Help You Focus"

"Searching for the holy grail of productivity apps is just another distraction. Spending hours searching for and trying out the best productivity apps is wasting time."

"That means using this fail-safe trick in your search for the right productivity apps: First diagnose the problem, then search for the solution."

"Myth: Multitasking Destroys Productivity"

"Multichannel multitasking is a way to navigate the two limitations of the human brain: one, its limited processing power—the more concentration a task requires, the less room the brain has for anything else—and two, its limited number of attention channels, meaning it can only concentrate on one sensory output at a time."

"As long as we’re not required to concentrate too much on any one channel, we’re able to do more than one thing at once."

"We can even use temptation bundling—which involves multitasking with one task you enjoy and one you don’t—to motivate us."

"Myth: You Have to Be Ready to Successfully Pursue a Goal"

"The myth of readiness is actually a detriment to your productive pursuit of a goal or dream."

"Declaring yourself “ready” or not means thinking you have to have a quality output standard."

"Myth: A To-Do List Is all You Need"

"Output isn’t the only measurement of accomplishment. Treating it that way doesn’t take into account the journey of long-term goals and thus discourages people from pursuing those goals."

"Stop making yourself feel like you’re not doing anything just because you didn’t check off a box today."

"“People make time for what they want to make time for.”"

"Maybe they’re “just not that into you,” according to this video from Sex and the City. Why aren’t they calling texting or replying?"

"Smart People Make Time for What’s Important to Them"

"When we let someone steal our time and attention with distraction, we’re paying with a non-refundable, nonrenewable resource."

"And they don’t feel guilty about being stingy with their time—because to surrender control of their time is to surrender how they want to live their life and what type of person they want to become."

"Time is precious. We only have so much of it. We must be careful about who and what we give it to."

"People Make Time for Who They Want in Their Life"

"Just as important as limiting what we allow in our life is limiting who we allow in our life."

"It’s essential to make time only for people who enable us to pursue traction. That means focusing on quality relationships over quantity."

"Ensuring the values of the people in your life don’t conflict with your own is critical to picking quality relationships. But we also must pick friends with as much interest and time to put into the relationship as we do."

"That begins with identifying the values they want to live by. Intimacy, selflessness, and determination are all values, or characteristics of the people we want to become."

"With this timeboxed calendar in hand, we can live the life we really want."

"It’s 100 percent within your right to make time for what you want."

"That’s because language shapes expectations, which shape our reality. If we have experiences that lead us to label ourselves in specific ways during our life, then we are likely to stick with those labels and the behaviors that go with them."

"Sure, only hard-core astrology followers would find any justification in that listener’s statement—but the sad thing is, to some degree, we all use a form of it. Most people hawk “This just wouldn’t work for me” as a valid explanation for not trying something new."

"Her inflexible self-identification denies her the chance to improve her life."

"That’s why we should stop defining ourselves as fixed identities, nouns, and instead start describing ourselves using verbs."

"Labeling not only affects how children see themselves and how they are treated but also limits their potential."

"The study concluded that teachers’ positive perception of students correlated to those students’ high performance on intellectual and academic tests."

"So, instead of saying, “I am [insert overly simple noun here],” we should say, “I am someone who [verb].”"

"For years, experts in addiction research have known the detrimental consequences of identifying as nouns, and they are phasing out calling people “addicts.”"

"By focusing on our behaviors, not fixed characteristics, we can release harmful perceptions of ourselves that hold us back from trying methods that might improve our lives—like those that can help us achieve the critical skill of being Indistractable."

"In a congressional hearing in 2021, U.S. representative Kathy Castor of Florida said that apps are “designed to be addictive.”"

"Do people overuse technology? Of course. But that’s entirely different from addiction, and this isn’t just a matter of semantics."

"In each case, something else that is outside our control has gained total agency over the decisions we make and the world we live in."

"In the mid-1980s, psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan developed what they call the “self-determination theory” of motivation. It identifies three innate human needs— competency, autonomy, and relatedness. We need these things to feel happy and in control, and students rarely have access to them."

"They find autonomy, competency, and relatedness in a video game instead, where they can master the virtual world, do it on their own terms, and connect with their friends."

"But I learned the network effect isn’t everything. In fact, it became a liability."

"“But there is a fatal flaw in some businesses that can hogtie their ability to make money — the expectation of completeness.”"

"When we asked event organisers to pay up, they said ‘what for?’,” Stock said. But threatening to remove a listing was not possible, Zvents needed them all to keep site visitors happy."

"Just Like Google"

"The Expectation of Completeness"

"“They also create much more value than they capture.”"

"When searching on Google, users also have an expectation of completeness. They come to the site to find all relevant results, every time. If Google decided to only display listings from paying advertisers, we’d all switch to Bing."

"When considering the collective value of all the clicks on un-sponsored links, the company does give away the vast majority of the value it creates."

"The difference is that Google’s market is not limited to local happenings as was the case for Zvents. Google’s market is much, much bigger."

"By organizing “the world’s information,” Google skims a proportionally tiny amount of value from a tremendously huge marketplace."

"The absolute number of people who buy a sponsored placement is large enough to keep the company humming, even though it only monetizes a tiny proportion of the value created."

"The expectation of completeness, and the resulting inability to monetize, may help explain the challenges faced by companies like Foursquare, RedBeacon, and many industry-specific job listing sites."

"One way around the problem of completeness is to facilitate the transaction itself."

"Companies like oDesk, Etsy and Uber, ensure they are in the middle of the money by processing the flow of cash. It’s much easier to justify taking a cut when you hold the gold, particularly when doing so adds convenience and security to the transaction."

"Without the ability to collect a share of each transaction, marketplaces serving users who expect completeness face a difficult challenge. Two options remain: either cater to a very large market, a la Google, or monetize a large share of the value created"

"Network effects are great but they don’t ensure a viable business model."

"Though they may prove successful from a growth and engagement perspective, certain marketplaces can be very difficult to monetize."

"Marketplaces where either the buyer or seller expects to choose from an exhaustive listing – so-called “complete” marketplaces – typically give-up far more value than they are able to capture."

"Unless they facilitate the transaction itself, these businesses often find themselves in a bind."

"Complete marketplaces must either cater to a very large market, à la Google, or position themselves to monetize a large share of the value they create."

"users who had taken pains to schedule a daily reminder in the app’s settings were much more likely to stick around."

"When they proactively prompted new users to set a daily reminder after completing their first meditation session, Calm saw a 3x increase in daily retention"

"you have to motivate your users to build a new habit."

"Habits don’t begin with action. They begin with a trigger to action."

"No matter how many external triggers you provide to people, they’re not going to take action if they really don’t want to in the first place. There’s also a crucial internal trigger that must exist within the user."

"Intrinsic motivation provides the fuel, and that’s where you should be aiming with the sparks of your external triggers"

"Remember that people are “switching” to your product whether they are coming to you from a direct competitor or not…. They have their “old way” of doing things and it’s your onboarding’s job to get them to experience the good life that your product offers."

"Deliver value in the message itself"

"Amp up the anticipation"

"In most cases, new users never get to the “Action” step of the Hook Model because they never return after their first session. That’s why triggers are so key. Lives get busy, and sometimes you need to prompt new users to do something to get to their aha moment."

"The success of your product relies on the success of your behavioral design. Guidance to value and benefit and paving the way to repeat meaningful engagement will motivate users to interact with your product, again and again."