Once when I was returning home after a long trip, to surprise my daughter, I bought her a Nintendo game console (it used to be quite popular then). Also, I bought a bunch of other stuff.
So when I reached home and showed her the Nintendo game, she was ecstatic. But as I pulled out the other gifts, her happiness level did not change much. After all, she was already happy with the first gift – what more could she feel?
Our brain does not process rewards linearly. If winning Rs one crore in a lottery gives you a certain amount of happiness, winning two crores would probably not make you twice as happy. In fact, it might be just about the same.
I have used this quirk to good effect for goal achievement and productivity.
Let us say, if you are writing a book, you can define your goal as ‘Write the book.’ But that takes forever and you don’t get the sense of progress.
Alternatively, you could break down writing the book into writing X chapters, and for each chapter, the tasks can be:
– do the research
– write the first draft
– polish and finalize the chapter
Now, your immediate goal is not ‘write the book’ but ‘do the research for the first chapter.’
Unlike writing a book, this can be done in a few hours. Then, when you tell yourself ‘I am done’, you activate your brain’s reward circuits and you are now motivated to push for the next goal.
To be really productive, you need to feel happy. And nothing works better than achieving small goals.
Remember: Our brain finds it much more rewarding to win 10 lotteries of Rs 1 crore than one lottery of Rs 10 crores.
– Rajan