These are the three questions of the Cognitive Reflection Test:
(1) A bat and a ball cost $1.10 in total. The bat costs $1.00 more than the ball.
How much does the ball cost? __ cents
(2) If it takes 5 machines 5 minutes to make 5 widgets, how long would it take 100 machines to make 100 widgets? __ minutes
(3) In a lake, there is a patch of lily pads. Every day, the patch doubles in size. If it takes 48 days for the patch to cover the entire lake, how long would it take for the patch to cover half of the lake? __ days
Great article. I’ve tried prompts to remind myself “don’t get angry” but tbh it hasn’t helped. Instead I’ll try remind myself “don’t feel attacked” and ask for some time to think
I can't speak more highly of Ryan Singer's work on Shape Up. It has transformed how we approach work by inverting the question from "how long something is going to take" to "how long do we want to spend on this".
Thank you for sharing. This is the first chapter from Todd Rose's excellent book The End of Average. In the book, he also touches on the fascinating topic of context. For example there is no such thing as a person's average level of aggression - IF I am around my parents I tend to get aggressive, but IF I am around friends and strangers I am calm.
Today, you are likely more valuable to YouTube watching ads. In the latest earnings call Alphabet CFO made the comment:
"both YouTube Music Premium and YouTube TV do have higher content acquisition costs as a percentage of revenues than YouTube ads and we are early there continuing to build out that subscriber base."
YouTube still pays out the majority of subscription revenue to publishers based on viewership but likely must also pay out more to music creators and labels. This is also not counting the costs of its original content.