> [!metadata] How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking: For Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers > > **Author:** Sönke Ahrens > **Published:** 2017 > **Genre:** Self-help > **Keywords:** [[Zettelkasten]] ## Notes - Hidden for Publish %% **Introduction** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 4 · Location 167** how much self-discipline or self-control one uses to approach the tasks at hand (Duckworth and Seligman, 2005; Tangney, Baumeister, and Boone, 2004). **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 5 · Location 176** self-control and self-discipline have much more to do with our environment than with ourselves (cf. Thaler, 2015, ch. 2)–and the environment can be changed. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 5 · Location 179** Every task that is interesting, meaningful and well-defined will be done, because there is no conflict between long-and short-term interests. Having a meaningful and well-defined task beats willpower every time. **1 Everything You Need to Know** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 6 · Location 195** A good structure enables flow, the state in which you get so completely immersed in your work that you lose track of time and can just keep on going as the work becomes effortless (Csikszentmihalyi, 1975). **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 6 · Location 200** A good, structured workflow puts us back in charge and increases our freedom to do the right thing at the right time. **1.1 Good Solutions are Simple – and Unexpected** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 9 · Location 251** The best way to deal with complexity is to keep things as simple as possible and to follow a few basic principles. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 9 · Location 257** It is not about redoing what you have done before, but about changing the way of working from now on. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 10 · Location 268** Routines require simple, repeatable tasks that can become automatic and fit together seamlessly (cf. Mata, Todd, and Lippke, 2010). **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 10 · Location 274** The principle of GTD is to collect everything that needs to be taken care of in one place and process it in a standardised way. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 11 · Location 282** The first reason is that GTD relies on clearly defined objectives, whereas insight cannot be predetermined by definition. We usually start with rather vague ideas that are bound to change until they become clearer in the course of our research (cf. Ahrens, 2014, 134f.). **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 11 · Location 284** The other reason is that GTD requires projects to be broken down into smaller, concrete “next steps.” Of course, insightful writing or academic work is also done one step at a time, but these are most often too small to be worth writing down (looking up a footnote, rereading a chapter, writing a paragraph) or too grand to be finished in one go. It is also difficult to anticipate which step has to be taken after the next one. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 11 · Location 295** the secret to a successful organization lies in the holistic perspective. **1.2 The Slip - box** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 16 · Location 368** We are still so used to the idea that a great outcome requires great effort that we tend not to believe that a simple change in our work routines could not only make us more productive, but the work also more fun. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 16 · Location 374** The best way to maintain the feeling of being in control is to stay in control. And to stay in control, it's better to keep your options open during the writing process rather than limit yourself to your first idea. It is in the nature of writing, especially insight-oriented writing, that questions change, the material we work with turns out to be very different from the one imagined or that new ideas emerge, which might change our whole perspective on what we do. Only if the work is set up in a way that is flexible enough to allow these small and constant adjustments can we keep our interest, motivation and work aligned–which is the precondition to effortless or almost effortless work. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 16 · Location 380** If we work in an environment that is flexible enough to accommodate our work rhythm, we don’t need to struggle with resistance. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 16 · Location 381** Studies on highly successful people have proven again and again that success is not the result of strong willpower and the ability to overcome resistance, but rather the result of smart working environments that avoid resistance in the first place (cf. Neal et al. 2012; Painter et al. 2002; Hearn et al. 1998). **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 18 · Location 403** Intuitively, most people do not expect much from simple ideas. They rather assume that impressive results must have equally impressively complicated means. **1.3 The slip - box manual** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 18 · Location 416** Luhmann had two slip-boxes: a bibliographical one, which contained the references and brief notes on the content of the literature, and the main one in which he collected and generated his ideas, mainly in response to what he read. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 20 · Location 457** We need a reliable and simple external structure to think in that compensates for the limitations of our brains. **2.1 Writing a paper step by step** **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 23 · Location 510** 1. Make fleeting notes. **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 24 · Location 516** 2. Make literature notes. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 24 · Location 518** Keep it very short, be extremely selective, and use your own words. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 24 · Location 519** Keep these notes together with the bibliographic details in one place–your reference system. **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 24 · Location 520** 3. Make permanent notes. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 24 · Location 523** develop ideas, arguments and discussions. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 24 · Location 525** Write exactly one note for each idea and write as if you were writing for someone else: Use full sentences, disclose your sources, make references and try to be as precise, clear and brief as possible. **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 24 · Location 528** 4. Now add your new permanent notes to the slip-box by: **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 24 · Location 530** Filing each one behind one or more related notes **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 25 · Location 534** Adding links to related notes. **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 25 · Location 536** Making sure you will be able to find this note later by either linking to it from your index or by making a link to it on a note that you use as an entry point to a discussion or topic and is itself linked to the index. **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 25 · Location 539** 5. Develop your topics, questions and research projects bottom up from within the system. **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 25 · Location 548** 6. After a while, you will have developed ideas far enough to decide on a topic to write about. **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 26 · Location 555** 7. Turn your notes into a rough draft. **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 26 · Location 558** 8. Edit and proofread your manuscript. **3 Everything You Need to Have** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 28 · Location 594** Focus on the essentials, don’t complicate things unnecessarily. **3.1 The Tool Box** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 29 · Location 619** We need four tools: · Something to write with and something to write on (pen and paper will do) · A reference management system (the best programs are free) · The slip-box (the best program is free) · An editor (whatever works best for you: very good ones are free) **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 30 · Location 629** You need something to capture ideas whenever and wherever they pop into your head. **5 Writing Is the Only Thing That Matters** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 35 · Location 702** Studying does not prepare students for independent research. It is independent research. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 36 · Location 710** the professor is not there for the student and the student not for the professor. Both are only there for the truth. And truth is always a public matter. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 36 · Location 711** Everything within the university aims at some kind of publication. A written piece does not necessarily need to be accepted in an international journal to become public. **6 Simplicity Is Paramount** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 40 · Location 787** In which context will I want to stumble upon it again? **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 41 · Location 797** The slip-box is designed to present you with ideas you have already forgotten, allowing your brain to focus on thinking instead of remembering. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 44 · Location 844** Fleeting notes are only useful if you review them within a day or so and turn them into proper notes you can use later. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 44 · Location 848** Permanent notes, on the other hand, are written in a way that can still be understood even when you have forgotten the context they are taken from. **8 Let the Work Carry You Forward** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 52 · Location 997** Only if the work itself becomes rewarding can the dynamic of motivation and reward become self-sustainable and propel the whole process forward (DePasque and Tricomi, 2015). **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 54 · Location 1036** The ability to express understanding in one’s own words is a fundamental competency for everyone who writes–and only by doing it with the chance of realizing our lack of understanding can we become better at it. **9.1 Give Each Task Your Undivided Attention** **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 57 · Location 1072** Give Each Task Your Undivided Attention **9.2 Multitasking is not a good idea** **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 58 · Location 1086** Multitasking is not a good idea **9.3 Give Each Task the Right Kind of Attention** **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 61 · Location 1135** Give Each Task the Right Kind of Attention **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 62 · Location 1156** While proofreading requires more focused attention, finding the right words during writing requires much more floating attention. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 63 · Location 1173** It is not a sign of professionalism to master one technique and stick to it no matter what, but to be flexible and adjust **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 63 · Location 1175** academic writing requires the whole spectrum of attention. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 63 · Location 1180** “Specifically, the problem-solving behavior of eminent scientists can alternate between extraordinary levels of focus on specific concepts and playful exploration of ideas. This suggests that successful problem solving may be a function of flexible strategy application in relation to task demands.” (Vartanian 2009, 57) **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 63 · Location 1185** creative people need both … The key to creativity is being able to switch between a wide-open, playful mind and a narrow analytical frame.” (Dean, 2013, 152) **9.4 Become an Expert Instead of a Planner** **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 64 · Location 1196** 9.4 Become an Expert Instead of a Planner **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 65 · Location 1212** Experts rely on embodied experience, **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 65 · Location 1220** the very thing academia and writing is all about: gaining insight and making it public. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 66 · Location 1231** Teachers tend to mistake the ability to follow (their) rules with the ability to make the right choices in real situations. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 66 · Location 1236** According to the Dreyfuses, the correct application of teachable rules enables you to become a competent “performer” (which corresponds to a “3” on their five-grade expert scale), but it won’t make you a “master” (level 4) and certainly won’t turn you into an “expert” (level 5). **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 67 · Location 1243** gut feeling is not a mysterious force, but an incorporated history of experience. **9.5 Get Closure** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 68 · Location 1264** We can hold a maximum of seven things in our head at the same time, plus/ minus two (Miller 1956). **Note - Page 68 · Location 1264** I wonder if this has changed based on information overload. Positive or negatiVely. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 68 · Location 1271** when we use memo techniques is to bundle items together in a meaningful way and remember the bundles–up to about seven (Levin and Levin, 1990). Or, if recent research is right and the participants in earlier tests have always already bundled things together, then the maximum capacity of our working memory is not seven plus/ minus two, but more like a maximum of four (Cowan 2001). **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 69 · Location 1282** Things we understand are connected, either through rules, theories, narratives, pure logic, mental models or explanations. **10 Read for Understanding** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 74 · Location 1373** “I would advise you to read with a pen in your hand and enter in a little book short hints of what you feel that is common or that may be useful; for this will be the best method of imprinting such portcullis in your memory.”–Benjamin Franklin[ 26] **Note - Page 74 · Location 1376** Engage in active reading. **10.2 Keep an Open Mind** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 80 · Location 1481** Confirmation bias is tackled here in two steps: First, by turning the whole writing process on its head, and secondly, by changing the incentives from finding confirming facts to an indiscriminate gathering of any relevant information regardless of what argument it will support. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 81 · Location 1490** Developing arguments and ideas bottom-up instead of top-down is the first and most important step to opening ourselves up for insight. We should be able to focus on the most insightful ideas we encounter and welcome the most surprising turns of events without jeopardizing our progress or, even better, because it brings our project forward. **10.3 Get the Gist** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 82 · Location 1523** The ability to distinguish relevant from less relevant information is another skill that can only be learned by doing. It is the practice of looking for the gist and distinguishing it from mere supporting details. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 84 · Location 1561** The ability to spot patterns, to question the frames used and detect the distinctions made by others, is the precondition to thinking critically and looking behind the assertions of a text or a talk. Being able to re-frame questions, assertions and information is even more important than having an extensive knowledge, because without this ability, we wouldn’t be able to put our knowledge to use. **10.4 Learn to Read** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 87 · Location 1607** This is why choosing an external system that forces us to deliberate practice and confronts us as much as possible with our lack of understanding or not-yet-learned information is such a smart move. We only have to make the conscious choice once. **10.5 Learn by Reading** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 87 · Location 1618** Learning requires effort, because we have to think to understand and we need to actively retrieve old knowledge to convince our brains to connect it with new ideas as cues. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 90 · Location 1658** Working with the slip-box, therefore, doesn’t mean storing information in there instead of in your head, i.e. not learning. On the contrary, it facilitates real, long-term learning. It just means not cramming isolated facts into your brain–something you probably wouldn’t want to do anyway. The objection that it takes too much time to take notes and sort them into the slip-box is therefore short-sighted. Writing, taking notes and thinking about how ideas connect is exactly the kind of elaboration that is needed to learn. Not learning from what we read because we don’t take the time to elaborate on it is the real waste of time. **11 Take Smart Notes** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 91 · Location 1673** Experienced academic readers usually read a text with questions in mind and try to relate it to other possible approaches, while inexperienced readers tend to adopt the question of a text and the frames of the argument and take it as a given. What good readers can do is spot the limitations of a particular approach and see what is not mentioned in the text. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 91 · Location 1686** This is exactly what we do when we take the next step, in which we write and add permanent notes to the slip-box. We don’t just play with ideas in our heads, but do something with them in a very concrete way: We think about what they mean for other lines of thoughts, then we write this explicitly on paper and connect them literally with the other notes. **11.1 Make a Career One Note at a Time** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 92 · Location 1702** Academic or nonfiction texts are not written like this because in addition to the writing, there is the reading, the research, the thinking and the tinkering with ideas. And they almost always take significantly more time than expected: If you ask academic or nonfiction writers, students or professors how much time they expect it would take them to finish a text, they systematically underestimate the time they need–even when they are asked to estimate the time under the worst-case scenario and if the real conditions turned out to be quite favourable (Kahneman 2013, 245ff). **11.2 Think Outside the Brain** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 94 · Location 1737** When we take permanent notes, it is much more a form of thinking within the medium of writing and in dialogue with the already existing notes within the slip-box than a protocol of preconceived ideas. Any thought of a certain complexity requires writing. Coherent arguments require the language to be fixed, and only if something is written down is it fixed enough to be discussed independently from the author. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 94 · Location 1743** As we write notes with an eye towards existing notes, we take more into account than the information that is already available in our internal memory. That is extremely important, because the internal memory retrieves information not in a rational or logical way, but according to psycho-logical rules. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 95 · Location 1745** The brain also doesn’t store information neurally and objectively. We reinvent and rewrite our memory every time we try to retrieve information. The brain works with rules of thumb and makes things look as if they fit, even if they don’t. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 95 · Location 1762** Philosophers, neuroscientists, educators and psychologists like to disagree in many different aspects on how the brain works. But they no longer disagree when it comes to the need for external scaffolding. Almost all agree nowadays that real thinking requires some kind of externalization, especially in the form of writing. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 96 · Location 1772** A common way to embed an idea into the context of the slip-box is by writing out the reasons of its importance for your own lines of thought. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 97 · Location 1783** But the first question I asked myself when it came to writing the first permanent note for the slip-box was: What does this all mean for my own research and the questions I think about in my slip-box? This is just another way of asking: Why did the aspects I wrote down catch my interest? **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 98 · Location 1805** Just by writing down these questions and making possible connections explicit in writing are the concepts and theories being investigated. Their limitations become as visible as their particular angle on a problem. By explicitly writing down how something connects or leads to something else, we force ourselves to clarify and distinguish ideas from each other. **11.3 Learn by not Trying** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 100 · Location 1847** Forgetting, then, would not be the loss of a memory, but the erection of a mental barrier between the conscious mind and our long-term memory. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 101 · Location 1862** Robert and Elizabeth Ligon Bjork from the University of California suggest distinguishing between two different measurements when it comes to memory: Storage strength and retrieval strength (Bjork 2011). They speculate that storage strength, the ability to store memories, only becomes greater over one’s lifetime. We add more and more information to our long-term memory. Just by looking at the physical capacity of our brains, we can see that we could indeed probably store a lifetime and a bit of detailed experiences in it (Carey 2014, 42). **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 104 · Location 1911** The challenge of writing as well as learning is therefore not so much to learn, but to understand, as we will already have learned what we understand. The problem is that the meaning of something is not always obvious and needs to be explored. That is why we need to elaborate on it. But elaboration is nothing more than connecting information to other information in a meaningful way. The first step of elaboration is to think enough about a piece of information so we are able to write about it. The second step is to think about what it means for other contexts as well. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 106 · Location 1940** What does it mean? How does it connect to … ? What is the difference between … ? What is it similar to? **12.1 Develop Topics** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 111 · Location 2046** Keywords should always be assigned with an eye towards the topics you are working on or interested in, never by looking at the note in isolation. **12.2 Make Smart Connections** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 112 · Location 2061** Luhmann used four basic types of cross-references in his file-box (Schmidt 2013, 173f; Schmidt 2015, 165f). Only the first and last are relevant for the digital Zettelkasten, the other two are merely compensating for restrictions of the analogue pen and paper version. You don’t need to concern yourself with them if you use the digital program. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 112 · Location 2064** The first type of links are those on notes that are giving you the overview of a topic. These are notes directly referred to from the index and usually used as an entry point into a topic that has already developed to such a degree that an overview is needed or at least becomes helpful. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 113 · Location 2076** similar though less crucial kind of link collection is on those notes that give an overview of a local, physical cluster of the slip-box. This is only necessary if you work with pen and paper like Luhmann. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 113 · Location 2083** Equally less relevant for the digital version are those links that indicate the note to which the current note is a follow-up and those links that indicate the note that follows on the current note. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 114 · Location 2087** The most common form of reference is plain note-to-note links. They have no function other than indicating a relevant connection between two individual notes. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 114 · Location 2099** It is important to always keep in mind that making these links is not a chore, a kind of file-box maintenance. The search for meaningful connections is a crucial part of the thinking process towards the finished manuscript. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 115 · Location 2105** Our ideas will be rooted in a network of facts, thought-through ideas and verifiable references. **12.3 Compare , Correct and Differentiate** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 117 · Location 2140** The slip-box not only confronts us with dis-confirming information, but also helps with what is known as the feature-positive effect (Allison and Messick 1988; Newman, Wolff, and Hearst 1980; Sainsbury 1971). This is the phenomenon in which we tend to overstate the importance of information that is (mentally) easily available to us and tilts our thinking towards the most recently acquired facts, not necessarily the most relevant ones. **12.4 Assemble a Toolbox for Thinking** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 119 · Location 2174** A truly wise person is not someone who knows everything, but someone who is able to make sense of things by drawing from an extended resource of interpretation schemes. This stands in harsh contrast to the common but not-so-wise belief that we need to learn from experience. It is much better to learn from the experiences of others–especially when this experience is reflected on and turned into versatile “mental models” that can be used in different situations. **13.1 From Brainstorming to Slip - box - Storming** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 133 · Location 2432** Whenever someone struggles with finding a good topic to write about, someone else will recommend brainstorming. It still has a modern sound to it, even though it was described in 1919 by Alex Osborn and introduced to a broader audience in 1958 in the book “Brainstorming: The Dynamic New Way to Create Successful Ideas” from Charles Hutchison Clark. **Note - Page 133 · Location 2434** Origin of brainstorming **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 134 · Location 2444** It makes things worse that we tend to like our first ideas the best and are very reluctant to let go of them, irrespective of their actual relevance (Strack and Mussweiler 1997). **Highlight(****blue****) - Page 134 · Location 2446** More people in a brainstorming group usually come up with less good ideas and restrict themselves inadvertently to a narrower range of topics (Mullen, Johnson, and Salas 1991).[ 38] **13.3 Getting Things Done by Following Your Interests** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 138 · Location 2517** The ability to change the direction of our work opportunistically is a form of control that is completely different from the attempt to control the circumstances by clinging to a plan. The beginning of the research project that led to the discovery of DNA’s structure was the application for a grant. The grant was not to discover DNA’s structure, but find a treatment for cancer. If the scientists had stuck to their promises, not only would they probably not have found a cure for cancer, but they definitely would not have discovered the structure of DNA. Most likely, they would have lost interest in their work. Luckily, they did not stick to their plan, but followed their intuition and interest and took the most promising path to insight whenever one opened up. The actual research program developed along the way (Rheinberger 1997). One could say they finished the plan on what to do the very moment they finished the whole project. **13.4 Finishing and Review** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 139 · Location 2543** A key point: Structure the text and keep it flexible. While the slip-box was very much about experimenting with and generating new ideas, we now need to bring our thoughts into a linear order. The key is to structure the draft visibly. It is not so much about deciding once and for all what to write in which chapter or paragraph, but what does not need to be written in a particular part of the manuscript. By looking at the (always preliminary) structure, you can see if information will be mentioned in another part. **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 140 · Location 2555** Another key point: Try working on different manuscripts at the same time. While the slip-box is already helpful to get one project done, its real strength comes into play when we start working on multiple projects at the same time. The slip-box is in some way what the chemical industry calls “verbund.” This is a setup in which the inevitable by-product of one production line becomes the resource for another, which again produces by-products that can be used in other processes and so on, until a network of production lines becomes so efficiently intertwined that there is no chance of an isolated factory competing with it anymore.[ 40] **13.5 Becoming an Expert by Giving up Planning** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 141 · Location 2579** The psychologists Roger Buehler, Dale Griffin and Michael Ross asked a group of students to: 1. Estimate realistically the time they would need to finish a paper. 2. Estimate additionally how long they think they would need a. if everything goes as smoothly as possible or b. if everything that could go wrong would go wrong. Interestingly, the majority of the student’s “realistic” estimates were not so different from their estimates for writing under perfect conditions. This alone should have given them pause for thought. But when the researchers checked how much time the students really needed, it was much, much longer than they estimated. Not even half of the students managed to finish their papers in the time they thought they would need under the worst possible conditions (Buehler, Griffin and Ross 1994). The researchers did not assume that half of the students suddenly faced calamities beyond their imagination. In another study a year later, the psychologists looked more closely at this phenomenon, which still puzzled them because the students could have answered any way they liked–there was no benefit in giving overly optimistic answers. They asked the students to give them time ranges in which they were either 50%, 70% or 99% sure to finish their paper. Again: They were free to give any answer. But, sure enough, only 45% managed to get their papers done within the time they were sure they had a 99% likelihood to finish it under any condition they regarded as possible (Buehler, Griffin, and Ross 1995). Now, you might think it would make a difference to remind them about their not-so-perfect guesses last time. The researchers thought so, but the students proved them wrong: Experience doesn’t seem to teach students anything. But there is one consolation: It has nothing to do with being a student. It has something to do with being human. Even the people who study this phenomenon, which is called the overconfidence bias, admit that they too fall for it (Kahneman 2013, 245ff). **14 Make It a Habit** **Highlight(****yellow****) - Page 150 · Location 2715** Another reason why this technique is still a hard sell is that most students only realise the need for a good system when they already struggling with their writing, typically towards the end of the university program, when a bachelor’s, master’s or doctoral thesis needs to be written. It certainly still helps, but it would have helped much more if one started earlier–very much like saving for retirement. It is also difficult to change behaviour in times of stress. The more pressure we feel, the more we tend to stick to our old routines–even when these routines caused the problems and the stress in the first place. This is known as the tunnel effect (Mullainathan and Shafir 2013). But Mullainathan and Shafir, who examined this phenomenon thoroughly, also found a way out of it: Change is possible when the solution appears to be simple. %%