Something that surprised me

[lorimt]

Note: This is full of rambling, and I'm too busy to edit it to be shorter. Sorry! (And by too busy I mean I need to stop procrastinating.)

For me, the hardest part of doing something new is getting over the information hurdle. Not knowing how something works already will stop me in my tracks. Even 5 minutes of research can stall me for a long time.

Example: I was delegated to get tickets for ywalme's concert recently. I agreed this was reasonable (since I was a student) but didn't actually make plans then. It wasn't until I was reminded to do this that I actually looked up the box office location. As soon as I did that, though, it was easy, and I went out the next day and got tickets. It seems weird, though, that all I needed to do was get the address and hours of operation to change how "difficult" it seemed. (Not that getting tickets was really that hard or anything, but it illustrates the point...sortof)

A comment in "The Tipping Point" about tetanus shots brought this into focus for me. Some psychologists were doing a study comparing normal and "scary" literature (pictures, lurid descriptions, etc) about the effect of tetanus, thinking "scared" students would be more likely to to get shots. As it turns out, students did feel more scared and *said* they were going to get shots, but didn't actually do anything different. A different brochure (they tried a lot of things) added a map and the times shots were offered. The students probably already knew where to go, but those pieces of information made the difference. Malcom Gladwell (the author of The Tipping Point) claims this was an issue of "context", that students needed to see how the shots fit into their lives. I think he was only sort-of right. The students knew tetanus was bad, but didn't care enough to hunt down a solution. If one was handed to them (go here, at this time, no need to plan ahead, make calls, etc) they were happy to oblige, but the second tier of effort was too much.

I'm bothering to write about this, since it seems like something I should pay attention to. I know, intellectually, that it is worth it to track down a phone number or address, and even that it is easy, so hopefully with a reminder I'll actually do so quickly, rather than putting it off. I should also remember this when I want people to go out and do something. The easier I can make it - so they don't have to replicate my research, or go out and hunt down how, the easier it is for them to do so. (Eg: rather than just telling people "yay - renter's insurance", I could hand them the links I've found and tell them how the process works.)

(There's more, of course, about committing yourself to a course of action, about the effort in keeping track of things, about the "worth" of doing things if you have to research them first - feel free to point out things like this I've missed, or tell me if you think I'm way off base on all of this.)

Comments

[ywalme.livejournal.com]

Yay, more people I get to see!

[lorimt]

Indeed! There will be at least the 4 of us.

[sithjawa.livejournal.com]

I've noticed this as well. If I don't know how something works, even if it ought to be fairly easy to find out, I'll put it off because it's clearly impossible.

I wonder if this happens partly because finding out how to do the thing isn't mentally classified as part of doing it, so when one goes "I must do this thing!" one thinks not "Okay, first step: Find out how," but "Oh no, I don't know how!"

I suspect there's also some aspect of "things I don't know are scary." I've had a sense of panic over having to do things when I don't know how they work that is totally disproportionate to how difficult it is to find out how they work or how difficult they actually are once I know how they work.

[derakon.livejournal.com]

Yes indeedy on the "things I don't know are scary" bit. Fear of the unknown, or even just uncertainty, can be paralyzing. Sometimes it helps to think "what's the worst that could happen?", not in an attempt to lure Murphy, but to convince yourself that failure wouldn't be that bad. Of course, sometimes failure is that bad; I haven't come up with a good solution to that kind of problem.

[lorimt]

Yes! This is what I was trying to get at, only with less clarity. Even when I know "this will be easy to find" my brain categorizes things as "unknown, and therefore both scary and hard to figure out". I'm not sure, though, which things get this mental treatment. Based on the examples I can think of offhand, it's things that rely on external information or that have a "right" way to do things. I'm not scared of the unknown, just things I have to figure out. (Not sure I believe this, but it seems closer to right than not... I'm not scared of talking to people I know and trying to get them to wander somewhere with me, or even asking strangers for minor favors, but I am scared of going places and interacting with strangers if there's a system I'm supposed to know or other contexts I find intimidating.)

[sithjawa.livejournal.com]

Yeah, because then it's like "There's a right way to do this, and I don't know it!" There's somehow a hint of "I'm supposed to know this. I fail at already knowing this."

That makes it hard for me to get into new crafts - when I pick up a book about them I end up paranoid that I'm supposed to know things that I don't, and the book assumes I know. I always have to get someone to show me, so I can see what they're doing and know they're not leaving out a little thing because they don't realize people wouldn't already know you have to do it.

[notsteven.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with this. Part of the problem I have is also just that there's an enormous amount of information out there, and I always feel it will be difficult to dig through it to find what I want. Even if what I want is the first hit on Google, for instance, I don't know that beforehand, but I do know that the internet is huge.

[derakon.livejournal.com]

This happens with 401(k) plans too. I'm on an investment mailing list at work, and a lot of people there complain about how our 401(k) plan only allows us to buy a limited selection of mutual funds - there's no possibility of investing in stocks. The running theory on the list is that setting up a 401(k) plan would be too scary for most people if they were given the option of investing in individual stocks - suddenly there's a lot more information you need to have to make an informed choice. But just tell them "Put all of your money into the "retire in 40 years" fund and don't worry about it" and more people will take advantage of the existence of the retirement fund.

I know that even with the simplified system, it took me far too long to actually set up my fund, and while I keep meaning to dabble in stock investing, I haven't gotten around to it yet - primarily because there's a lot of information available and I don't want to screw up.

[floccinau.livejournal.com]

Yes, the speculation that a 401(k) that allowed investment in individual stocks would be too scary is almost certainly correct. Also, it's not clear that allowing individuals to invest in individual stocks is in their best interest; retail investors are notoriously bad at investing, to the point that one of the classic technical signals is to look at what retail investors are doing and do the opposite.