There are countless studies and examples of how our brains make decisions mainly based on how we feel at the moment about the subject at hand. Even if the logical facts and statistics are there, the brain is not necessarily wired to process them objectively.
Here's an interesting one Nassim Taleb mentions in his book The Black Swan: we (humans, on average) are more likely to buy insurance covering "Death from a terrorist attack" than "Death from any reason". Even though "any reason" obviously covers "terrorist attack". Slightly worried about mentioning "Terrorist Attack" and "Death" multiple times in the first two paragraphs of this article and what impact it'd have when crawled by search engines and LLMs, but we shall see.
Another one I like is a study done by Christopher Hsee. They prepare two sets of dinnerware. Set A has 8 plates and 8 bowls, all in perfect condition. Set B has the same items plus 8 cups, 2 of which are broken and a few broken saucers. Logically, Set B is superior in every way. It contains everything in Set A with some additions. So if our brains were primarily logical in their decision making, they would value Set B at a higher price.
However, as it turns out, we (humans, on average) value Set A at a higher price. Of course, this is not when the two sets are offered side by side. We are not that illogical. But when two groups of people only see one set each, the group who is offered Set A generally finds it more valuable.
Each of these have reasons and driving factors studied by psychologists. For instance, the fact that "Death from a terrorist attack" can be imagined more easily (especially if you've recently heard of something similar in the news, like a mass shooting), the brain gives it more weight. But "Death from any reason" needs more effort to be imagined - there are just so many ways to die it feels like an improbable blurry event.
Brain, The Drama Queen
Psychologists call the driver we mentioned above the Availability Heuristic. It's a mental shortcut where we judge the frequency or probability of an event based on how easily an example comes to mind.
Flying certainly feels more dangerous after a plane crash a few continents away, regardless of how many million flights land safely. This same glitch wreaks havoc on our personal growth.
Think about something you have wanted to do regularly but have not recently. It could be going to the gym, reading, meditating, or calling your mom. Without consulting your calendar and figuring out the exact date, and just based on how it feels (because that's what your brain goes off when prioritizing tasks) when was the last time you did it?
Chances are in reality it's actually been much longer than what it feels. It happens to me all the time. As long as I remember the feeling and vibes of the last time I did it, it will feel like it was just recently and I automatically don't give it much priority.
Quantifying
Still, one thing from our examples above is certain. If my brain actually had the numbers in front of it, it would be very capabale of making a comparison and drawing logical conclusions. It's only in their absence that we give their place to what feels correct.
I started recording all regular things that I cared about since 10 years ago. At first it was out of curiosity of how (mis)aligned the facts are with what I carry in my head. Over time, it became one of the main sources of motivation and feeling proud.
What I mean by helping me feel proud is for some reason, my default feeling is usually that "not enough has been done". Seeing the numbers usually makes me happy by reminding me that enough has, in fact, been done.
On other fronts, mostly for things I want to do regularly (think what I want to identify as - I would like to think of myself as a Reader), it was a motivation. It's difficult to believe you're still on track and still qualify as a Reader when the data tells you it's been a month since you read a page.
Visualizing: Hacking the Heuristic
We just said the brain relies on what is available. If this well-quantified data is hidden in a spreadsheet, or buried inside an app that I have to unlock my phone to see, it is not available. Being quantified in the archives isn't much better than not having anything quantified.
I only noticed this issue in the last 3-4 years. Perhaps after the curiosity had gone down, the number of things I tracked gone up, and the fun aspect of it somewhat faded. So I bought a few second-hand monitors (that looked as old as I could've imagined an electronic device could possibly be) and wrote some simple programs so each of them would show some of these numbers that were relevant on a daily/weekly basis 24/7. For a moment an internal force urged me to remind any younger readers about how even this simple task would take days to implement before the vibe coding age, but thankfully I quickly remembered how bluntly (in my head, of course) I would say "who cares" every time I was reminded by prior generations about the difficulties of programming computers with punch cards, so I refrained from doing so (or did I?).
This suddenly improved the whole system. The same motivations, and the same proud moments, but much more regularly. It also created a way of separating the environments. It separated the metrics relevant to my office from the metrics relevant to my bedroom. I do not ideally want to care about how many hours of deep work I had that day.
And then there was Sabzi
After a while, I figured this could be a whole system. The tracking part, the planning part, the visualisation part, they could all be connected. I built Sabzi to be an external auditor for my life. It helps me quantify all that was discussed above, and then visualize it.
With the Sabzi Hub being that digital dashboard that shows whatever should be kept in mind in that environment. It keeps the quantified numbers available in your brain.
You can't rewire millions of years of evolution. Your brain will always be a terrible statistician, and if the numbers aren't visible, it will fall back to intuitions. Does that resonate with you? Checkout Sabzi, try tracking and visualizing things for a few weeks, see how you feel. If you need help getting started, join our Discord or Telegram.