Reddit Reddit reviews Sidetracked Home Executives(TM): From Pigpen to Paradise

We found 2 Reddit comments about Sidetracked Home Executives(TM): From Pigpen to Paradise. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

Books
Self-Help
Sidetracked Home Executives(TM): From Pigpen to Paradise
Grand Central Publishing
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2 Reddit comments about Sidetracked Home Executives(TM): From Pigpen to Paradise:

u/1961_Geekess · 11 pointsr/theXeffect

I've got 3 things that have helped me over the years:

Robert Sapolsky’s observations on our brains and rewards:

In a lecture set I listened to from Sapolsky he talked about how when a mouse pushes a lever and suddenly a reward appears that first time, they get that thrill with the reward. But once they learn that pushing the lever gets the reward the thrill happens with pushing the lever. “This is going to be great!”

This is really an important thing to grasp, you reinforce feeling good doing the thing that will result in the reward by knowing that reward is coming.

You can use this to manipulate your own behavior, if you can be a bit disciplined about the reward, possibly a good application of the x effect. For example I use “I can play video games only after I clean the kitchen.” When I know I get to play once I’m done, it feels great. This has turned me into heck of a housekeeper!

Even more interesting, intermittent rewards for a task are even more strongly reinforcing. You can find this in this article on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinforcement#Intermittent_reinforcement.3B_schedules. This is why gambling is so strongly reinforcing. “There is a chance this is going to be great!”

I personally have not leveraged this type of reward strategy, but I can imagine allowing yourself the roll of a dice for a reward and declining it if you don’t get a 1 or 2 perhaps. Well, I can imagine it, but I don’t think I’d like it!

Tool for getting started:

I read David Allen’s “Getting Things Done” back in its heyday. There was one strategy that I held onto from that book that has made a huge difference for me over the years.

For anything that seems daunting, too complicated, that you keep avoiding starting on, try this approach. What one small thing you can do to make any progress at all. This step can be TINY, but just pick something.

A small example. I had a set of tapes I needed to return to someone who had loaned them to me. I had no idea where he was, I’d have to package them up, go to the post office, etc. The whole thought of it always stopped me in my tracks. Cue this technique. I made my first task looking up his address. Another, getting paper to wrap the package, and so on and so on. Within a week something that had been weighing on my mind for years was gone. It was such a relief.

This may sound like just common sense, but I am sure you all have that thing you just can’t get yourself to even start. The wonderful thing about picking a first step is they often cause a cascade of action. Sometimes it’s just getting started.

Keeping my house clean:

When I was at my wits end trying to keep my house clean, I ended up stumbling on this book "Sidetracked Home Executives" https://www.amazon.com/Sidetracked-Home-Executives-TM-Paradise/dp/0446677671

The title is silly, but the method is great. Establish a tickler file of home cleaning tasks with different repeats, daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc and use a tickler file to drive them. The majority of tasks are actually small, but if you persistently do them as scheduled you keep your home in great shape. Has made a huge difference for me.

Hope this helps!

u/twinkiesnketchup · 1 pointr/konmari

I really recommend the side track home executive system for people with depression and anxiety. It’s a very simple system to start and it teaches you how to look at your life in small doable increments. Sidetracked Home Executives(TM): From Pigpen to Paradise https://www.amazon.com/dp/0446677671/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_GsQ3Cb01PE0SM