“It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?”
-Henry David Thoreau
Welcome to August’s Mysteries of the Mind Newsletter
There just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done. Some new research suggests that it’s possible to change that feeling, paradoxically, by spending some of our precious time helping other people.
Cassie Mogilner of the University of Pensilvania, Zoë Chance of the Yale School of Management and Michael Norton of Harvard Business School recently authored the paper “You’ll Feel Less Rushed If You Give Time Away.”
The results: Spending time helping others leaves people feeling as if they have more time, not less.
The research: In a battery of studies, researchers assigned some subjects to help another person-by writing a note to a sick child, for example, or editing a student’s essay-and instructed another group of subjects to do something else. In one study the other group wasted time by counting the letter e‘s in Latin text, in a second study they did something for themselves, and in a third they simply left the academic lab early. In each experiment the people who lent a hand to others felt as if they had more time than the people who did not.
Researchers said that they thought it might be the social connection, the meaning, or the enjoyment associated with helping others that made the study subjects feel more relaxed about their time. But the explanation that emerged in the results is that people who give time feel more capable, confident, and useful. They feel they’ve accomplished something and, therefore, that they can accomplish more in the future. And this self-efficacy makes them feel that time is more expansive.
By giving away time to others, the study found that individuals feel more effective, and that enhances their productivity.
(Certainly if you’re giving so much time away that you’re not able to complete other tasks, then it’s not going to work.)
But the research indicates that giving even a small amount of time to someone else should make you feel you can do more in the time you have. The study showed that it didn’t matter if individuals gave 10 minutes, 30 minutes or a full day, the same positive benefits in productivity and feeling of having more time were realized in just 10 minutes.
“A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.” -Jack London
So many lessons in leadership to be learned! Communication, Motivation and Change.
I created a new website to bring all of my other websites together as one: http://www.PaulWDraper.com
Looking forward to spending time with you in your city.
Thank you for being my friend.
Your friend,
-Paul Draper
paul@mentalmysteries.com
801-541-2976
Websites:
wwww.PaulWDraper.com
www.MentalMysteries.com
www.MentalMystery.com (agent friendly site)
www.helpinghospitalsheal.com
www.AnthropologyOffice.com
“Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.”
– John Adams
Commercials
Last month I gave you the preview of my first regional commercial. Union Wireless Cellular uses a little magic to talk about Mystery Fees. UW is the premier telecommunications provider in the Rocky Mountain region and #1 in Yellowstone National Park.
Now you can see both the first and second commercial here.
Your Favorite Sites
What are your favorite sites on the internet to visit other than: Facebook, Amazon, Ebay, Pintrest, twitter. What are some fun sites that I may have never heard of that have great content or great design?
This is a question that I asked some of my friends on facebook this month. Here are their fantastic answers. Enjoy!
ThisIsWhyImBroke.com, funnyordie.com, flickr.com, cracked.com, snopes.com, deceptology.com, Boingboing.net, kiva.org, Funbrain.com, blackhat.com
