Sometimes, waiting can seem like hardest thing in the world. Similar to our willpower, patience is a limited resource, so find a distraction to take your mind off the wait at hand.
Picture: Mark Engelbrecht/Flickr
Author and Wharton professor Adam Grant writes at LinkedIn:
Instead of highlighting the risks of walking early, Dan finds a clever way to increase the benefits of waiting. He builds a game of virtual tug-of-war, where pedestrians compete against the people waiting to cross from the other side of the street. The number of jaywalkers per hour drops by 90%. Some citizens get so absorbed in the game that they forget to cross the street for multiple lights. And there’s a side benefit of the friendly competition: strangers who would normally walk right past each other now have an excuse to interact.
While distraction can be an effective strategy for mundane tasks, other tasks (such as driving) are obviously too important to risk complete distraction.
The next time you find yourself hungry or cranky, and you’re still having to wait through something, distract yourself. It will make time pass by faster for everyone.
How to Stop Annoying Behaviours and Handle Offensive People [LinkedIn]
Comments