There are too many things in the book "Scarcity" that are beyond my original knowledge:

1) I thought scarcity was about the situation where people are short of money and time. Later, Only then did I realize that this book is more about scarcity mentality, which falls into the category of psychology.

2) I thought we should do something under the pressure of lack of money or time. After reading this book, I discovered that the psychological cost of doing so is particularly high.

3) I thought that Yuxian was about being debt-free and light-hearted. After reading this book, I discovered that the so-called "light" has so many benefits, far beyond my original understanding.

4) I thought that I was conscientious and always busy at work. After reading this book, I found that I was in a cycle of time scarcity.

It took me 5.5 times to really understand "Scarcity".

Some people will ask what 0.5 times means, because this is a translated book. For some parts of the book that are not smooth to understand, I specially checked the English original version to let myself better understand the author. the meaning expressed. Since I haven’t read the original English version in full, let’s count it as 0.5 times.

The author said that scarcity is an emerging science, let us understand scarcity together.

Scarcity, to put it bluntly, means lack of money or time, but the author puts forward two points:

1. The scope of scarcity goes far beyond money and time. Including people who are on a diet face the scarcity of food, lonely people face the scarcity of social interaction, people with insomnia face the scarcity of sleep, etc. Anyone who “owns less than what you feel you need” will create scarcity.

Many people feel that they are short of money or time. The author uses these two aspects to illustrate scarcity, which can arouse readers' screams.

2. The author’s entire book mainly talks about people’s scarcity mentality that accompanies the scarcity of physical objects. Moreover, this mentality is unconscious and often cannot be controlled by people.

Just like there is a credit card bill that needs to be paid at the end of this month, and you don’t have enough money to pay it back. At this time, in addition to solving the money problem, you will also be involuntarily doing other things. Think of this incident.

The understanding of scarcity mentality allows us to look at scarcity from another perspective. In addition to the physical scarcity itself, it also allows us to see the impact of the accompanying scarcity mentality on people, and how it is finally implemented in life. Use this theory.

Leisure is the opposite of scarcity, and it comes in two forms: abundant material, which corresponds to material scarcity, and an abundance mentality, which corresponds to a scarcity mentality.

When we have enough money, we can buy whatever we want without having to weigh whether we need to reduce other consumption. This is a kind of freedom in itself. For example, if you go to the mall and like two pieces of clothing at the same time, if you have enough money, you can choose to buy both without having to weigh which one to buy and which one to discard.

But we understand in our hearts that resources are always scarce, and there cannot be infinitely sufficient materials. However, when we have relatively sufficient materials, we don’t have to make too many trade-offs, and the resources appear to be relatively abundant. .

At the same time, when we make a wrong decision and buy expensive clothes that we have never worn, this mistake seems insignificant to the rich. But for the poor, this kind of mistake will undoubtedly make his tight life worse, because he may need to reduce a certain consumption this month or borrow money to live because of an impulsive consumption, which means that the consequences are relatively More serious.

Possessing relatively abundant materials is accompanied by a mentality of abundance. The mentality of abundance is a kind of luxurious psychological enjoyment that allows us to freely choose. When faced with choosing A or B, you can have the option of "choose both".

At the same time, when we have a wealthy mentality, we know that even if we make impulsive purchases, this mistake is not a big deal. A wealthy mentality gives us a sense of security that it doesn’t matter if we make mistakes. It is also a kind of luxurious psychological enjoyment.

The author said that the essence of scarcity is the lack of leisure - abundant material and a wealthy mentality.

When you have no leisure, you need to constantly make trade-offs and face relatively more serious consequences of mistakes, because you have no room for mistakes.

When you have free time, you can not only buy anything you want, but also have the psychological enjoyment of not having to make too many choices and trade-offs, and the luxury of not having to worry about making mistakes.

But there can be neither too much nor too little leisure. Less leisure cannot solve the problem of scarcity. Too much leisure will cause waste.

1. This is what the author calls the focus dividend.

For example, when a work task is about to reach its deadline and time is scarce, you suddenly find that you have become very efficient. Not only do you have sudden inspiration, but you are also particularly able to withstand all kinds of distractions. The temptation, complete the work very efficiently.

Many people have experienced the feeling that they have completed a long-delayed task extremely efficiently at the last moment.

In a state of scarcity, the brain captures people's attention, and we devote all our energy to dealing with scarce affairs and thinking about how to effectively use our resources.

2. All types of scarcity will produce concentration dividends

Not only the use of time before the deadline, all types of scarcity will produce efficient use of resources.

For example, in the final stage of using toothpaste, not only the use of toothpaste, but also the use of many items will be the same. People will unnaturally squeeze less than before, lest the toothpaste (item) is too full. Running out soon.

The last few bites of delicious chocolate always make you savor it slowly.

The same goes for the food on the table. When there is a lot of food, you will think it tastes average, but when there are few dishes, you will feel it is delicious.

3. Pretending to be scarce is hard to do

The author mentioned that we cannot make ourselves efficient by imagining a deadline.

Imaginary deadlines can never capture our attention as strongly as real deadlines, because there is always another voice in the brain. This one is deceiving yourself. Don’t let your brain be fooled. There is a way out.

However, artificially creating some intermediate deadlines (such as milestone events in project management) can actually improve efficiency to a certain extent, which we will mention later when we talk about how to use scarcity theory.

Scarcity has one advantage, but it also has a series of disadvantages.

This is a direct impact of scarcity. When you don't have enough money to buy A, it's easy to spend the money to buy B, only to find that you don't have enough money when you buy B. When the time for doing C is not completed on time, the time for doing C can only be completed before the time for doing D. This is called borrowing, which is equivalent to overdrafting future resources.

Many times I find that there is not enough money to purchase B or not enough time to complete D. In fact, it is because the purchase of A and the completion of C are borrowed, resulting in a reduction in the budget to purchase B and a reduction in the time to complete D.

This is the "peep" view mentioned by the author.

When our brains focus on scarce matters, we can concentrate on dealing with scarce matters, but at the same time, we temporarily exclude other things from the brain, including important things.

The book mentions that 20-25% of the deaths of firefighters were due to traffic accidents involving two collisions, while 79% of firefighters died because they did not fasten their seat belts.

This case is easy to understand, because when the firefighter goes to the fire scene, his attention is completely focused on how to put out the fire, and something as important as wearing a seat belt is excluded from the brain.

When working overtime at work, it is easy to overlook wedding anniversaries or children's birthday events.

Due to scarcity and the need to solve problems, bandwidth is reduced, resulting in short-sightedness. Bandwidth is reduced, and long-term planning requires bandwidth, so in this case it is easy to be short-sighted and only focus on the things in front of you. , ignoring things that require long-term consideration.

The book mentions that scarcity mentality causes a decline in intelligence, executive control, and bandwidth. Bandwidth is all the mental effort, intelligence, energy, etc. we have to do things. The author uses a general bandwidth to express this concept.

When you are doing other things, the scarcity mentality captures part of your attention and reduces our bandwidth. As we said before, this is unconscious.

Just like when you go to your daughter's sports meeting with a lot of unfinished work in mind, it is difficult for you to concentrate all your attention on your daughter's performance, because the unfinished work is not there. in your mind.

This means that when you are in a state of scarcity, you have to pay a cost for everything you do, which is additional psychological burden, causing bandwidth reduction.

This is like the feeling of not having enough brain power to do many things when you are sleep deprived. However, the author mentioned that the cognitive decline caused by the scarcity mentality even exceeds insomnia. It gives me the feeling that I am in a state of scarcity. The cost of doing things is too high.

Because of scarcity and no leisure, resources need to be carefully budgeted. If a mistake is made, the consequences will be relatively more serious. As mentioned earlier, when the poor buy expensive but impractical clothes, this adds insult to injury for the poor.

Busy people are already very busy, but in the end they attend a party that they should have refused, which makes their time even more insufficient. The busy state (under scarcity) makes them breathless and requires Thinking about whether things should be postponed again, I can’t think of important or urgent things at all, and I don’t have time to do them.

But for people who have spare time (free time), attending parties is a manifestation of enjoying life.

This is the scarcity trap mentioned by the author. The author mentioned an example that is very alarming.

Two students A and B complete their weekly homework. A always successfully completes this week's homework every Friday, but B always turns in the homework from last Friday every Friday. With the same efficiency, B has to pay a greater cost to complete one homework a week (each person in the state of scarcity psychological cost).

Some people will say, why can’t B finish this week’s homework over the weekend, so that he can be the same as A in the future? Frankly speaking, it was because of B's ??habits and choices that he soon started to make up homework again.

The reason for B to go back to make up the homework may be an illness, or maybe he participated in a school competition. In short, if an accident takes up B’s writing time, B will go back to make up the homework. As for the status of homework, because there is no good plan for unexpected events, it is difficult to stick to the plan even if it is planned. In the end, B always feels that it is impossible to hand in the homework late. This kind of cognition and habit is very confusing. A vicious cycle of scarcity.

We have said that assuming a deadline is invalid, then really set one. For example, during a 10-day project, agree with team members on three project summary meeting times. By artificially converting 1 deadline into 3 deadlines, team members will improve their efficiency before the corresponding deadlines.

This also artificially sets the time to 25 minutes, feeling the scarcity of time, thus creating high efficiency.

Human scarcity begins when people are wealthy. If there is no advance planning when people are wealthy, it will inevitably cause subsequent shortages. So be sure to remember to plan when you have plenty of material or bandwidth.

For example, the most important way to avoid moonlighting is to first deduct part of your savings after your salary is paid, and start planning expenses for the rest.

For example:

Set a reminder. Remind yourself what date you have a doctor’s appointment and what date is your wedding anniversary, and put it in your calendar.

Make a to do list in advance. Put important things and related preparations on the list as well.

For example:

Plan your credit card repayments in advance

Avoid always borrowing money in the future, accompanied by high interest rates

Avoid always putting things off until later, because there are things to be done in the future, and procrastination will cause all kinds of anxiety. Doing procrastinated things in the future will have additional and relatively high psychological costs.

Make use of one-time decisions instead of multiple decisions, such as automatic deductions for water, electricity and gas bills.

For example:

Save risk funds to deal with emergencies and buy insurance in advance.

10% of the income is automatically converted into savings as spare funds.

Make a time plan and leave free time to deal with emergencies. Refuse to be distracted when doing things, so as not to have enough time to complete the work that should be completed.

For example:

Making various plans in advance is a plan that leaves room for leisure. For example, when making event plans, not only should you set aside free time, but you should also plan for unexpected things.

Complete important activities when bandwidth is abundant. For example, many people choose to get up early to finish writing.

Stick to your plans and learn to say no if there are a lot of distractions.

"Scarcity" is worth reading many times to remind yourself not to fall into the vicious cycle of scarcity.