Is it convenient?

Dan Ariely is a behavioural economist. He gave this talk at TED about how we make decisions. As it turns out, according to his research, it really all boils down to one thing: convenience. How convenient is it to donate your organs? How convenient is it to answer a questionaire or apply for membership or discontinue a service? Does it matter what your beliefs are or your values? You could argue that they do. "I would never ________." According to Ariely, it depends. Remember those tech geeks in the '80's who knew 7 different computer languages? If we all had to know DOS-whatever, how many of us would be online? How many mommy blogs would we have out there? My guess is not many. Blogger made everything so convenient.

This all reminds me of The Good Samaritan study done at Princeton, as outlined in Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point. The researchers took a group of seminarians and asked them to give an extemporaneous talk on a given biblical theme. After answering a questionaire about why they had chosen to study theology, the researcher would send them over to give their talk. Some were given the topic of the relevance of the professional clergy to the religious vocation. Others were given the parable of The Good Samaritan. Along the way, they would come across a man who was slumped down, eyes closed, coughing & groaning. Of course, as a member of the clergy, they would all stop, wouldn't they?

As it turns out, no. With some of the cases, the researcher would look at his watch and tell them they were late, that they'd better head over, their audience was waiting. In the other cases, they would look at their watch, and say, "You've got a few minutes, but you may as well head over now."

Of the "late" group, only 10% stopped to help the man. 61% of the non-rushed group stopped to help. It didn't matter if they'd just had a reminder of The Good Samaritan, what really mattered was if they were in a rush. This reminds me of Christmas time at the mall, or as I like to call it, Gift Pressure Hell. People rushing everywhere, tempers shortened. It's the least giving time!

Back to convenience: how convenient is it to start a new exercise program or a new anything? How convenient is it to watch TV in your household? How convenient do you make it to clean out your car or do the laundry? Incidentally, I wonder how many people would have googled Malcolm Gladwell or Dan Ariely if I'd not have provided the links.

Perhaps convenience is one key to making a successful change to our behaviour. How can you streamline your life and create a system that makes change more convenient? Something to ponder.