For Obama, Jobs, and Zuckerberg, Boring Is Productive 398
Hugh Pickens writes "Robert C. Pozen writes in the Harvard Business Review that while researching a behind-the-scenes article of President Obama's daily life, Michael Lewis asked President Obama about his practice of routinizing the routine. 'I eat essentially the same thing for breakfast each morning: a bowl of cold cereal and a banana. For lunch, I eat a chicken salad sandwich with a diet soda. Each morning, I dress in one of a small number of suits, each of which goes with particular shirts and ties.' Why does President Obama subject himself to such boring routines? Because making too many decisions about mundane details is a waste of your mental energy, a limited resource. If you want to be able to have more mental resources throughout the day, you should identify the aspects of your life that you consider mundane — and then "routinize" those aspects as much as possible. Obama's practice is echoed by Steve Jobs who decided to wear the same outfit every day, so that he didn't have to think about it and the recent disclosure that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is proud that he wears the same outfit every day adding that he owns 'maybe about 20' of the gray, scoop neck shirts he's become famous for. 'The point is that you should decide what you don't care about and that you should learn how to run those parts of your life on autopilot,' writes Pozen. 'Instead of wasting your mental energy on things that you consider unimportant, save it for those decisions, activities, and people that matter most to you.'"
it worries me (Score:5, Insightful)
I Too, Suffer Under the Weight of My Own Genius (Score:5, Funny)
it worries me how much mental energy they were putting into something as simple as getting dressed or what to have for breakfast. sounds like an anxiety disorder to me.
You'd be surprised. I mean, let's take myself for example. Even starting to think about shaving sets my mind abuzz with contours and shear strength equations dealing with each follicle of hair. Before applying the lather, it's a pain to model my face in a three dimensional image so as to optimize the amount of face covered per stroke versus a random walk pattern across the ... and I've already spent too much time on it so I don't shave.
... and I've already spent too much time on showering so I don't shower.
... and I've already spent too much time on selecting a suitable place to live so here I sit in my mom's basement.
Then there's the possibility of showering. However, to achieve the optimal temperature at which my body enjoys a shower requires me to measure the temperature of the water leaving the shower head. But wait, as my body enters this spray, the temperature adjusts based on the laws of cooling since my body is a colder object than the water or air inside the shower
Then there's selecting an adequate living arrangement. First I start out walking about the city inspecting each apartment and judging the socioeconomic surroundings with an expected value weighted against my monthly payment combined with the ability and freedom to do whatever I want when I want. But that's a nebulous construct that requires set theory and a rigorous modeling of how I'll spend the coming year since the contract length is variable based on property
Don't even get me started on employment or fornication. I need to conserve that brain power to be the indomitable force of genius that I am.
Re:I Too, Suffer Under the Weight of My Own Genius (Score:4, Funny)
Hmmm...Funny or Insightful? Funny or... oh, shit. I posted. Never mind.
Damned choices!
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Funny or Insightful?
Informative!
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I sit in my mom's basement
After skimming through your post, I read that as "I shit in my mom's basement" - which, if you think about it, actually fits in with the rest.
My partner's teenage son refuses to shit in public restrooms and I can see him doing something like that; I suppose it's fortunate that his mother and I don't have a basement! :p
Re:it worries me (Score:5, Insightful)
The amount of time some people can spend on trivial stuff like that is mindblowing people people like us. The reason we can't see the importance here is probably because we've already optimized these simple processes without even thinking about it. The weather is the most important variable factor in my clothing routine. I avoid eating the same thing two days in a row, but it follows a simple sandwich/salad + fruit/snack formula.
On the other hand, I did some field maintenance in a modelling agency (not as glamourous as you might think - an office of 15 women all with sync'd up periods, BAAAD place to be one week of the month) and it took me about as long to purchase, eat and digest my lunch as it did for a small group of these people to decide what they all wanted. It wasn't like they were trying to decide to go somewhere as a group, they all went off individually to get food from different places. I eavesdropped on their conversation while progress bars were doing their thing, they seemed to consider lunch to be some kind of personal expression that had to be absolutely perfect or face ridicule from everyone in the street for the rest of their lives. I could feel my inner feminine side trying to scream "It's just lunch! Get over it!" at them. I can't imagine what the damage to their productivity was. Maybe if they spent more time concentrating on work and less time mulling over the minutae of office life they wouldn't have had to work late every night.
Re:it worries me (Score:5, Insightful)
seemed to consider lunch to be some kind of personal expression that had to be absolutely perfect or face ridicule from everyone in the street for the rest of their lives.
Early on in my marriage my wife expressed frustration over how I wasn't giving much input into what I thought we should have for dinner, and how I was generally happy with whatever was decided upon. It was something that created a minor divide between us. One day, about two years into being married, my wife mentioned that she was hungry, and so I looked in the fridge and offered to get her two or three things. She declined all of them, saying how she didn't feel like eating any of them. I asked what she did feel like eating and she responded that she was trying to figure that out. After a couple more comments I drilled into something that I've confirmed with multiple other female associates of mine: women don't get hungry for food; women need to get to the point where they 'feel' like they need to eat a specific kind of food. It's possible that as time goes on the set of acceptable foods grow, but the desire to eat is rarely driven by their stomach, it's pretty much driven by their emotional 'feelings' (whatever those are). My wife found it very odd that when I'm hungry, it's because there's a pain in my stomach and any and all foods can satisfy this pain (just need to reduce the stomach acid). As long as my tongue is okay with it, all foods can make the hunger go away.
So for your co-workers, what they're doing while they're standing in the queue deciding on what they should eat, is having an introspective therapy session. They're trying to find out what their current hormones tell them they 'feel' like eating, and are hoping that something on the menu matches their 'feelings'. That's why it takes so long.
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So for your co-workers, what they're doing while they're standing in the queue deciding on what they should eat, is having an introspective therapy session. They're trying to find out what their current hormones tell them they 'feel' like eating, and are hoping that something on the menu matches their 'feelings'. That's why it takes so long.
Perhaps it's because your body can actually communicate not only that you need food, but what kind of food you need. Ever ate something and then regretted it because it made you feel oily, irritable or gave you carb burn? Perhaps you don't have this issue, or haven't listened to your body enough to decypher these messages. Until I went on various diets (some of my own formulation, some like South Beach which had specific rules), I didn't get a good understanding of what my body was saying when I ate. A h
There are some things that shouldnt be optimised (Score:4, Informative)
Now granted, the foot issue you explained is pretty rediculous, but there's other people on here saying they eat the same thing every day. That is actually not good for your body. Its just like an exercise routine, if you do the same thing every time then it gets easy as your muscles adapt and you get less benefit from it. Your body also adapts to your diet, and keeping your food choices irregular helps burn more calories and keep your metabolism high.
Re:There are some things that shouldnt be optimise (Score:4, Informative)
Now granted, the foot issue you explained is pretty rediculous, but there's other people on here saying they eat the same thing every day. That is actually not good for your body. Its just like an exercise routine, if you do the same thing every time then it gets easy as your muscles adapt and you get less benefit from it. Your body also adapts to your diet, and keeping your food choices irregular helps burn more calories and keep your metabolism high.
Well, that smells like grade-A bullshit.
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If I had to eat as little food as models usually do, I'd also spent forever deciding what I'd use that tiny little quota on. You don't have many ounces of fat on your body before you're a "plus size" model.
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This place is far removed from the stereotypical oaf-ice job - a modelling agency, photo/video production house and makeup studio rolled into one. I'd have thought keeping lunch simple would have been a nice weight off their minds.
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I eat oatmeal every morning. It's really easy for me to make sure I have breakfast in the house. "I wanted pancakes today, but we're out of syrup."
I always have oatmeal in the house, but I don't always eat it. I, too, always have breakfast in the house.
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But then you end up with pink walls...
I recently bought a house where the walls in the great room were pepto-bismol pink and every room had a different bright color from a Crayola box. Someone needs to be the temper for the designer... the engineer to the architect.
Re:it worries me (Score:5, Informative)
No, Obama solved an important problem: as President he needs to look impeccably dressed. But he doesn't want to invest much more time in getting dressed in the morning than throwing on the first thing that comes out of his closet. So what he did is arrange his closet so that the first thing that comes out is one of a few very nice suits. That way he gets the best of both worlds: he can look Presidential without having to fuss over his wardrobe.
Practical, I'd say.
Re:it worries me (Score:4, Interesting)
You'd be surprised how much of a toll it can take, being in a position where your primary duty is to make hard decisions, i.e., those without definite answers. I remember very clearly, being a network admin at a company that was on the verge of failing for the last 10 year, whose infrastructure was an ad-hoc mess that was built up purely as a response to immediate needs. I had to make so many decisions, none of which had clear right answers due to the constant constraints of time, money, and the need to "sell" absolutely everything, that I would literally get irritated at the thought of deciding what to eat for lunch.
Most people probably spend the majority of their life without even being aware of it, but you can actually feel it, your decision-making reserves emptying. And if you spend a lot of time tapped out, you come to resent the utterly irrelevant decisions that have to be made, like what to eat for lunch. I'd think, "Oh my GOD I don't care, I just need to stop being hungry so I can function."
I never got to the point of resenting the decision about what to wear for the day, but then again I've never really cared about that, and usually didn't start to feel the drain until about 10 AM anyway. But I can easily see how a more demanding situation would lead to it, and I'll never forget that feeling. If you haven't felt it, I can see how it'd be hard to understand, but it's real, and there's no "anxious" feeling about it. You've just got none left. If you'd never run in your life, you might find it hard to understand what it's like to feel like you don't have enough breath. It's just a finite resource that most people never really put pressure on.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1TxMKaYHYA [youtube.com]
Imagine if there was a war on.
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I use a wardrobe (as in the Lion, the Witch, etc) with different clothes separated on different shelves, folded and stacked. I grab a shirt and pants from the top of their respective stacks. If I don't like the combination, I put the shirt back and take the next one. The laundry randomizes which clothes are in which order each week, keeping pairings fresh. Every few weeks, if I have a pile of something (IE: t-shirts) that I never get to the bottom of, I'll flip the whole stack upside down.
Re:it worries me (Score:5, Funny)
I use a wardrobe (as in the Lion, the Witch, etc)
Do you know a lot of people who don't know what a wardrobe is, and find yourself having to explain it to them in terms of classic literature?
Re:it worries me (Score:5, Informative)
Re:it worries me (Score:5, Funny)
Re:it worries me (Score:5, Interesting)
lined a whole wall with Ikea wardrobes... a wall is a waste of precious space
A wall, being two-dimensional (from the point of view of the resident of the room. what's inside the wall is treated as inaccessible from his universe), takes up no space at all. X * Y * 0 = zero cubic centimeters.
Unless, of course, it's one of those fractal space-filling walls.
Re:it worries me (Score:5, Funny)
This is what I was thinking. I have a whole closet full of clothes, and it takes me literally 1 second to decide what to wear. Maybe it's different when you're president and everyone is reading into what kind of suit you're wearing.
What to have for breakfast? Whatever is in the kitchen.
I always take the leftmost shirt without thinking about it. Someone once asked me if I wear the same shirt for several days in a row - and realised I that my obsessive habit of always taking the shirt on the left clashed with my wife's obsessive need to sort shirts by colour, with identical shirts together!
Re:it worries me (Score:5, Funny)
This is what I was thinking. I have a whole closet full of clothes, and it takes me literally 1 second to decide what to wear.
I've optimized the process even further: I never even buy clothes, but it makes the day-to day routine more complex. For example, I have to make sure that holes in the trousers don't line up with holes in the underpants (try explaining that one to a judge!).
Other than that, I'm good to go.
Re:it worries me (Score:5, Informative)
Seems they have taken a clue from Albert Einstein, who supposedly owned 6 or 7 of the exact same brown suits for the same reason - so he wouldn't waste any mental energy with such useless minutiae such as what to wear that day.
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Seems they have taken a clue from Albert Einstein, who supposedly owned 6 or 7 of the exact same brown suits for the same reason - so he wouldn't waste any mental energy with such useless minutiae such as what to wear that day.
Einstein also didn't wear socks - because they took too much time to put on, and shoes already did the job well enough.
Re:Shoes (Score:3)
I alternate two pair of shoes so they can air out between wearings. It seems to decrease wear so I believe two pair lasts roughly three times as long as one pair of shoes.
Going without socks I think I'd try a five-to-seven day shoe cycle. I like socks, and often go through two pair a day in summer.
Re:it worries me (Score:4, Informative)
This is actually false. He wore quite a wide range of clothes, typically picked out by his wife. When she died, he didn't care as much and while he owned more clothes, he tended to wear pretty drab similar looking stuff. This myth was perpatrated by the movie The Fly, and I used to believe it until someone showed me some pictures of him in different clothing, including a hoodie.
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Yeah, I know it had a distinct "internet rumor" quality to it - that's why I qualified my comment with "supposedly"...
Re:it worries me (Score:4, Funny)
If only they had invented GarAnimals [wikipedia.org] earlier....would have made it easier for poor Albert to match his clothes in the morning...and still have some variety.
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I'm not that bad, but I have my clothes (mentally, not physically) divided into "Brown Pants Clothing" and "Black Pants Clothing"*. I can combine any of the Black Pants Clothing items with a pair of black or grey pants and look presentable. The same is true with the Brown Pants Clothing and brown/tan pants. If I combine Black Pants Clothing and brown/tan pants (or vice versa) though, I risk looking like I don't know what clothing matches. Which I don't. I'm Clothing-Matches-Challenged. Thank goodness my wif
Is this really that uncommon? (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't most people eat the same thing (or about the same thing) for breakfast and lunch every day? I have for years and years, but I guess I didn't realize it was noteworthy to do so.
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Extroverts are stimulated by new things; as often as possible. Quite often they tend not to consider that introverts don't, and instead find the constant novelty draining.
Re:Is this really that uncommon? (Score:4, Insightful)
Personally I buy 2-5 of everything so I don't need to worry about changing my 'look.' It's obvious that I care about my 'look' since I took the time to determine what it was, but beyond initial determination I don't care. Having multiple copies of clothes enables the 'same' shirt or pants with regularity without resorting to wearing dirty clothes. Were I to wear a pair of shorts 2 days in a row at home, who the hell notices? It's not any different than choosing profile images or appearance of an Avatar; Aside from shaving and general cleanliness, I don't ever need to think about my look while being readily identifiable and presentable at all times.
It's not the clothes that I'm concerned about. There are far larger matters at stake every day of our lives as one day we will die, and the best that we can hope for is that we leave a better world for friends, family and other people to live in.
Introverts like novelty (Score:4, Interesting)
Quite often they tend not to consider that introverts don't, and instead find the constant novelty draining.
Novelty isn't inherently draining to an introvert - social interaction is. I'm an introvert myself, albeit not severely so and I am quite energized by novelty. I just don't much care what other find novel. Engineering and science research fascinate me whereas fashion and reality tv could not be more boring. Both have novelty as a component but the difference is one is internally directed and the other is externally directed.
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I don't, for lunch anyway... but that's because I usually buy lunch at work so it's either a hot dish or some kind of sandwich or some kind of salad with variation within each of those three. Even if I make lunch packs myself I usually rotate what's on them as I empty packages. Can't really comment on breakfast since I usually skip it.
Error in the summary (Score:5, Informative)
English isn't my first language (so correct me if I'm wrong) but from TFA
I don't think that the quoted part means that Obama always eats that breakfast, etc. as the summary seems to imply.
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English isn't your first language? You're qualified to be chief editor of Slashdot.
Demonstrated a high level of reading comprehension? You're now disqualified from the chief editor position.
Misquote (Score:5, Informative)
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Yeap. What the hell is going on with /.?
You must be new here.
For me it is about lazyness (Score:2)
This shouldn't need pointing out (Score:2)
Any virtue can be taken to a fault. Asimov grew his sideburns because he realized he could save much more time just shaving his chin. Taking it to an extreme, we'll have:
I bathe every other day because I don't smell that bad.
I pee in my empty soda bottle so I don't have go get up from my chair during a raid.
I eat other people's lunches out of the fridge at work because it saves time on making my own.
With any of this stuff, if you can live your life without adverse impact it's a quirk or an idiosyncracy. If
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Asimov's sideburns weren't a fault. As somebody described him in the introduction to The Hugo Winners:
"The person qualifying as editor for such an anthology would naturally have to be someone who had not himself received a Hugo*, so that he could approach the job with the proper detachment. At the same time, he would have to be a person of note, sane and rational, fearless and intrepid, witty and forceful, and, above all, devilishly handsome."
* At the time he wrote it, Asimov had not actually won a Hugo.
So
Been doing this for a while (Score:2)
I realized somewhere along the line that there were a lot of little everyday decisions that really didn't matter to me. Choosing what to have for lunch every day is a great example of one of these things. Lunch on a weekday is still "just lunch" to me, I have no wish to go out and eat some extravagant delicious meal, I just want to eat something relatively tasty and get back to work so over time I've resorted to having a fairly small number of "standard" lunches that I prepare for myself. This way I know I'
Just like Sheldon (Score:5, Insightful)
There was an episode on The Big Bang Theory where Sheldon started using dice rolls to make mundane decisions, thereby freeing up his mind to work on more complex problems.
I never really thought about it, but I gravitate towards that kind of behavior. I too tend to eat the same things for breakfast and lunch, and have a limited set of wardrobe choices.
IIRC there was a recent study that indicated that multitasking was not such a good idea. It tends to make one mediocre at all tasks rather than making one good at any single task. This seems to tie in to the thesis of this article.
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But, how did he decide on what dice to use?
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I keep a D10 handy for just such mundane decisions - those where the outcome really doesn't matter - and it makes life interesting. It's actually fun not knowing what you are going to do all the time.
It is also a bit relaxing to know that I don't have to waste any time on those thoughts; just roll the die and get on with life. I can't say I apply it to getting dressed, but choosing what to have for breakfast falls into that category. We don't keep anything I won't eat around, so a quick roll, count, and eat
Weird (Score:3)
I had no idea getting dressed was so mentally taxing to some people.
The president, I can understand (he's always in the public eye) but the others? Whatever, dudes, you have/had more money than God, if you want to wear the same clothes every day, knock yourself out, but don't give me this bullshit about expending energy on deciding what socks to put on in the morning.
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That's why I'm I skip the small talk (Score:5, Funny)
I've routinized phone calls from friends. I just give bland answers while I'm also on the computer, until they go away. That way they don't distract me from what I really love, which is my computer and phone, for work and play. I also skip birthday gifts and cards, and even routine courtesies like saying please and thank-you -- you know, manners. By routinizing them, I can check my eight favorite websites 10 times a day.
Ian Malcom from Jurassic Park (Score:5, Interesting)
If you haven't read Jurassic Park, check it out. I picked up recently and was surprised how much I enjoyed it. The article made me think of this passage
----
"But don't you find it boring to wear only two colors?"
"Not at all. I find it liberating. I believe my life has value, and I don't want to waste it thinking about clothing," Malcolm said. "I don't want to think about what I will wear in the morning. Truly, can you imagine anything more boring than fashion? Professional sports, perhaps. Grown men swatting little balls, while the rest of the world pays money to applaud. But, on the whole, I find fashion even more tedious than sports
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yeah having a wardrobe that all works together (bonus points if you have somebody with Color Sense set things up for you) prevents looking more ridiculous than you have to.
part of the trick of not panicking is to "predecide" things as much as possible.
Re:Ian Malcom from Jurassic Park (Score:5, Interesting)
While many of the things I've done over my life resulted in disapproval or derision from my grandmother, everything paled in comparison when I made the mistake of giving her an honest opinion of why I didn't pay much attention to sports. Specifically, the Chicago White Sox and Bears. Her being a lifelong, rabid fan of both.
All she asked was "Why didn't you watch the game last night?" and I answered honestly.
"Because I have better things to do. Honestly grandma, it is nothing more than grown men playing a children's game of advanced catch. Its not like they're curing cancer or doing anything useful with their lives. What's the point?"
It was like a small thermonuclear device was set off in the living room. Two different neighbors came over to survey the wreckage -- one from a couple houses down. Someone had even called the police. One said that after 50 years of living next door, she couldn't remember anything like it. She wanted to know if grandma finally snapped and killed grandpa.
Nothing so trivial. I had blasphemed not only the beloved Sox, but called into question the very game of baseball itself.
It was three months before she'd speak to me again. Hell, when my cousin came out of the closet not only as a lesbian but also a registered Democrat, she only got two months of the silent treatment.
At least I didn't tell her I was a Cubs fan. I probably wouldn't be here today if I did that.
CT scan (Score:5, Funny)
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In other news... (Score:3)
Denim (Score:2)
Other Examples (Score:2)
Dean Kamen is also know for wearing the same outfit every day.
This also kinda reminds me of how Buckminster Fuller defended his sterile architecture by suggesting that its mass-produced homogeny would encourage people to differentiate themselves by what they do rather than where they live.
It's a vaguely communist-sounding notion that bland equality can make us more free. Perhaps this is why most public schools in the U.S. don't require uniforms.
Psychotic Alternatives (Score:2)
Solution looking for a problem (Score:5, Funny)
Simplify. (Score:2)
People are always drawing their own conclusions about why I wear all black all the time, but this is the real reason... I just can't be bothered to match colours in the morning, and it narrows down my options greatly when buying new clothes. (Plus black fabric is a lot more forgiving with stains.)
Every non-metrosexual already knows this (Score:5, Insightful)
Every non-metrosexual already knows this. Here's how we dress when we go to work:
1) First socks and underwear we see in the drawer
2) Top pair of pants on the pile (or on the rack, but I wear jeans these days)
3) Warm? First non-threadbare shirt on the rack. Otherwise, first shirt with non-ratty collar, followed by first sweater in the pile.
Takes about a minute. Heck, the time it took me to write this is probably the longest sustained period I've ever thought about what to wear in the morning.
Re:Every non-metrosexual already knows this (Score:4, Insightful)
1) First socks and underwear we see in the drawer
2) Top pair of pants on the pile (or on the rack, but I wear jeans these days)
3) Warm? First non-threadbare shirt on the rack. Otherwise, first shirt with non-ratty collar, followed by first sweater in the pile.
Shouldn't one ensure even wear by implementing a queue rather than a stack, or by taking the time to execute LRU algorithms?
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That bothers me way more than it should. When I lived alone, if fixed that problem by two unrelated algorithms (makin the pile behave like a queue was just too much work):
1 - You can just turn your stacks upside down once in a while. If that is not enough to cycle through all your shirts, you have too many shirts.
2 - You can always postpone washing untill you have no other option. That ensures equal wear to all your shirts.
Richard Feynman (Score:3)
In the book "Surely your joking, Mr Feynman", Richard Feynman talks about how he decided that he didn't want to waste time deciding on what to eat for desert - so he standardized on chocolate pudding.
Given that humans can't really multi-task there is a lot to be said for eliminating mundane decisions.
Re:Richard Feynman (Score:4, Funny)
Autopilot: how a hacker navigates the un-exciting (Score:2)
I think extreme lack of variation in lifestyle is one of the hallmarks of a hacker; at least it was in the 1980s. You don't spend mental energy on things unrelated to what you actually want to do. Clothes are there to cover the body, and serve no other purpose. Food is there to nourish. You don't immerse yourself in these things because they're distracting.
This comes from a desire to be on autopilot in all the necessary but uninteresting aspects of life. Hackers never want to put thought into dressing, beca
Absolutely (Score:2, Insightful)
All you nay-sayers in the comments should read about the phenomenon of decision fatigue [wikipedia.org].
I do the same thing as Obama and Steve Jobs -- I keep the "routine" parts of my life as routine and predictable as possible, so I don't have to waste any energy on them. I've been doing this instinctively for at least ten years, but I only found out about decision fatigue [nytimes.com] a few months ago. It makes perfect sense; I have to make decisions all day long to do my day job as a programmer, and the quality of those decisions
Preselect your options (Score:2)
Another reason. (Score:2)
I do all of the above because I'm a cheap bastard and only have a few pairs of clothes.. and am too lazy to go down to the local Target. Simplify.
What is old is new again... (Score:2)
Richard Feynmann was doing this back in the 30's and 40's....
How to look routinely good without looking boring. (Score:4, Informative)
I like the sentiment expressed. Why waste mental resources on mundane decisions that don't amount to anything worthwhile. I created a similar routine with my clothes, however, I do not by wearing THE EXACT same thing every day (and bragging about it), but, by creating a routine system that still requires no decision making yet produces a diverse look.
I have one pair of stylish black shoes (slip on even) that look great with jeans, pants or a suit.
I have two dozen pair of black socks that are all identical. This means I merely need to grab two socks and I know they match. I don't allow variations (which means you end up having to inspect each sock to find it's right mate) and who cares about socks.
Finally, and this is the key, I have a limited set of jeans and button shirts that all mix and match without exception.
At the beginning of the day, I merely pick a pair of jeans, grab a shirt, two socks and slip on my one pair of shoes and voila I've spent no effort thinking about it yet I look great.
Decision paralysis.... (Score:5, Insightful)
What these guys have shown is an ability to rise above what I call decision paralysis. Everywhere we go we are inundated with choices. Next time you go to the grocery store or pharmacy take a moment and marvel at all the choices we have. Dozens of shampoo formulas, pain relievers, snacks, clothing...you name it. For many people that's a good thing but for others it just stops them cold. I remember being in a Walmart a few months ago. I go to the aisle and pick up a bottle of aspirin. There is a lady there trying to decide which one to get. I go to get something else, on the other side of the store, and discover that I had forgot to get something in the pharmacy section so I go back. That same lady is still there trying to decide what to get. Decision paralysis. It must have been a good 10 or 15 minutes and yet there she was still trying to figure out what to get.
What Obama and others have figured out is that often the worst decision is no decision at all. You just pick something and go with it. If it doesn't work out, deal with it and adjust.
Re:Decision paralysis.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Congratulations! You're calling it by the name professionals have used for years. There's even a mention of it on Wikipedia [wikipedia.org], where it forms part of a larger article on the problems with decision making.
I'm an educated and intelligent person, and this happens even to me. OTOH, that's one of the things that Costco attributes to it's sustained popularity and growth - almost always they have just one of a given thing. (And keep in mind that in many ways, Costco is the anti-Walmart. It's customer demographics skew strongly upscale and intelligent.)
Nope, they haven't discovered anything - at best, it's a rediscovery of an old military principle. "A leader can be wrong, he cannot be indecisive".
Better solution: get a wife (Score:5, Insightful)
I was once accused of failing to "wear the pants" in my marriage. I just smiled. Pants are overrated. They should only be worn when you care. I like the arrangement exactly the way it is.
I am more extreme (Score:4, Funny)
A small number of suits, each with matching shirts?
That's for losers, Barack. I have a small number of dark suits, and a set of white shirts. No time wasted on the matching process.
I also have a few white+blue shirts. I use these like the tape on those supermarket checkout registers: the color is a signal that the tape is about to run out. So, if I ever find myself wearing a non-white shirt, I know I need to go to the store and buy 12 white shirts.
Not thinking enough... (Score:3)
For all those people who think this is silly... Who think that people who do this don't have the mental capacity to simply choose their clothes for the day....
You aren't thinking enough. It is not a matter of not having the TOTAL mental capacity to choose clothing. It is a matter of not having the EXTRA mental capacity because we are spending so much of our capacity on other things. Some of us spend every waking minute (and many of our non-waking minutes) constantly thinking about a dozen different things. Interrupting that chain of thought for the mundane things is more trouble than it is worth. And it is not just picking the clothes. It is a hundred different things throughout the day, for which wasting even one minute's thought each adds up to about two hours of wasted thinking time per day, especially when you consider the time it takes to get back into what you were thinking about before.
Read 'Your Brain at Work.' It is an excellent book about how your brain actually functions and how to maximize how much "work" you can get out of it per day. More and more research is showing that the more we can automatize in our daily lives, the more capacity we have left for what really matters.
making the same decisions, but at a different time (Score:3)
For a lot of daily, repetitive actions it makes sense to think about them en masse. Planning your breakfast meals for a week, a month, or indefinitely allows you to think carefully --and once-- about the caloric content, nutrient balance, budget, time to prepare, time to eat, etc. Planning your outfits allows you the same luxury: it's easier to budget a the time spent dressing, laundering, and purchasing your clothes when you're not doing it over and over again every day.
I heard a radio interview of an efficiency expert who was asked --snidely, as if a positive answer would mean he was incredibly anal-- if he carefully planned out his morning bathroom routine. He said, without reservation, that indeed he did: he'd thought through his morning routine, and on his bathroom counter he lined the various products up he would use in the order he would use them.
Having these sorts of things set up for you just just step through without having to search for them is just like having your properly workstation configured: it saves you time and effort, and allows you to get started more quickly.
Re:wow (Score:5, Funny)
Obligitory Dilbert [dilbert.com]
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Obligatory Albert Einstein. [whosdatedwho.com]
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Re:wow (Score:5, Funny)
I'll just never understand why anyone would care about what covers their feet as long as they are comfortable.
Perhaps your feet have different requirements to others?
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I'll just never understand why anyone would care about what covers their feet as long as they are comfortable.
I was converted in the 90s when women started - briefly - wearing trendy "comfortable" shoes. They were so fucking ugly that even *I* noticed that they looked bad. My wife can have a whole shoe room now, as far as I am concerned. Just don't dare have a pair of Birkenstocks in there.
You are constantly followed by journalists? (Score:5, Insightful)
I assume that you, too, are constantly followed by journalists and photographers, appear in television essentially daily, constantly meet important people from other cultures, etc...?
What, none of that applies to you? Perhaps that might affect the fact that appearance might be more important factor for him than it is for you?
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
You must be new here. The debate happened today. The earliest that Slashdot could get to obfuscating it would be next Sunday.
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I wouldn't say it was an Obama/Jobs/Zucker thing, it's more likely the audience that dictates the spin. Try selling this story in a positive light to Grazia, Vogue or... that other fashion one, see what kind of reaction you get there.
Re: (Score:3)
God tells Romney what underwear to wear. It's fire-proof too.
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Personally, the idea of someone in charge of a country having to need a nutritionist follow him around and tell him what to eat just harks back to the Victorian eras where the Queen was told what was wrong with her because she had a pile of lackey doctors following her about.
I don't think I'd trust someone who needed a nutritionist to eat healthily. It suggests incompetence, ignorance, and a lack of personal will.
And, personally, stick me in charge of a country and I'd not change my diet if the entire cabi
Re: (Score:2)
What do you have against carbonation?
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I wouldn't drink soda everyday, not even diet. I would think the president of all people would have a nutritionist helping him plan out healthy meals.
The author said that about himself, not the President.
And I think the Slashdot editors must change their outfits seventeen times a day, and never repeat a meal.
Re: (Score:3)
This has been the case for every president since the teleprompter was invented.
The first time I ever saw those glass-panel teleprompters they were surrounding Saint Reagan. One on each side, so he could turn and spontaneously address the audience.
The way some people carry on, you'd think that teleprompters had had to be specially invented just for Obama.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
The way some people carry on, you'd think that teleprompters had had to be specially invented just for Obama.
I thought they were invented by Steve Jobs.
Re:is that why he uses the same boring cliches? (Score:5, Insightful)
The "teleprompter thing" is mostly just people trying to justify their dislike for the man. When we dislike someone, we tend to latch on to any little thing to validate our dislike, regardless of how valid a complaint it is.
Please note, this is neither a defense nor an attack on Obama. This has happened with pretty much every political figure in history (that you could legally speak ill of in public).
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:is that why he uses the same boring cliches? (Score:5, Informative)
Because he always uses one-- always. Reagan often used notes. Reagan was also clearly more comfortable answering questions, even though he was far older than Obama and clearly occasionally suffered from "senior moments" even before he developed Alzheimer's. What's the real difference? Reagan acknowledged the value of the opinions of others, and expected criticism. Obama's reaction to criticism or mere questions on his ideas are answered by confused fumbling or barely constrained contempt for the challenger.
W rarely used a teleprompter; he preferred old-fashioned index cards. Does that make him dumber, or smarter than Obama and Reagan?
Every single detail you cite there is wrong, though.
Unless she could bury you under 1000 megaton-range (Score:2)
...warheads.
When you're the president of the United States, you get a bit of a pass on fashion. Basic, functional, professional is going to be enough when you know the launch codes.
Re:So Obama is in the same catagory as (Score:4, Insightful)
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