Caroline Webb > Quotes

“You make the most of your brain’s talents if you adjust for the limitations of each system. That means creating the conditions for your deliberate system to function at its best, and recognizing when to slow down and come off autopilot.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“As a result, studies have found we can reap immediate intellectual and emotional dividends from investing in exercise and sleep, or even from taking a moment to breathe deeply, smile broadly, and stand a little taller. In”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“We know the reality we perceive is highly subjective; we might as well seek out the more interesting aspects of reality if we want to feel more energized by everyday life.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. —STEPHEN COVEY”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“psychologists have long observed something they call the Einstellung effect, where having an existing solution in mind makes it harder for us to see a radically different but better way to solve our problem.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“Instead of racking your brain to come up with solutions and ideas, you create the best possible space for the other person to think effectively about the problem. The approach is called “extreme listening,” a term coined by educationalist Nancy Kline.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“One thing at a time. Most important thing first. Start now.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“To be at your most resourceful in handling workplace challenges, it helps to become adept at recognizing when you’re sliding into defensive mode. Refocusing attention on potential rewards in the situation at hand can also help to reengage your deliberate system and shift you back into discovery mode.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“having a sense of autonomy and personal competence is profoundly motivating.22 It turns out that we perform better, and feel better about ourselves, when we feel in charge of at least some aspects of what we’re doing—whether that’s in the goals we set for ourselves, the way we work, or the purpose behind our effort.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“Sometimes I feel like throwing my hands up in the air and saying, ‘Enough!’ I immediately feel my brain seizing up when I do that. Then, instead of being smart in handling the workload, it’s easy to make bad decisions,” he says. “You can end up catastrophizing, worrying about worst-case scenarios like missing deadlines and even losing your job. None of which helps you think any more clearly.” It’s a good description of how stressful it feels when our brain’s deliberate system gets swamped with demands, and how the resulting tumble into defensive mode makes it hard to be our most sensible selves.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“We so often get pulled into tasks that we should, by rights, be asking others to help with. We tell ourselves that they’re not quite as experienced or knowledgeable as us, or that it will be quicker if we just do it ourselves. But there’s a massive cost to this way of thinking. By being unwilling to delegate tasks that others could reasonably help with, we fail to make progress on the important or tricky things that only we can do.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“But I discovered that when I was struggling to stay on track with the intentions I’d set in the morning, it really helped to literally remove everything from my desk. Clear the space, and I suddenly feel clearheaded. The effect is nothing short of miraculous.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“So it’s important for us to know that when we’re making decisions, we—and others—will instinctively tend to overvalue the status quo compared with new options, unless we stop to think properly about how splendid the unfamiliar thing might really be.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“you instead want to start with something positive, rather than something negative. Like this: Start with warmth. First, acknowledge and show appreciation for the person’s request. Your “yes.” Then, instead of starting with “I’m sorry…,” begin by enthusiastically highlighting whatever your positive priority is right now, and why it’s interesting, important, or meaningful to you. Consider picking out a reason that will also resonate with the person you’re talking to. Your “no.” Explain that this means, with regret, that you can’t do the thing they’ve asked you to do. End with warmth. Perhaps there’s a suggestion or offer you can make without detracting from your real priorities, such as an introduction to other people who could help. At the very least, offer some warm wishes for success in their project. It’s an important closing sentence that often gets dropped when we’re focused on our own discomfort at saying no.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“volunteers who’d been forced to skip their lunch went on to see food-related words more clearly and quickly in a word-recognition test.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“What’s the smallest first step you can take to move things forward?”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“you instead want to start with something positive, rather than something negative. Like this: Start with warmth. First, acknowledge and show appreciation for the person’s request. Your “yes.” Then, instead of starting with “I’m sorry…,” begin by enthusiastically highlighting whatever your positive priority is right now, and why it’s interesting, important, or meaningful to you. Consider picking out a reason that will also resonate with the person you’re talking to. Your “no.” Explain that this means, with regret, that you can’t do the thing they’ve asked you to do.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“I should have been on the lookout for signs of common ground between people. When I took the time to set that more positive intention for subsequent team meetings, I also decided on two specific behavioral goals to support it. One was to make sure that I said something to appreciate each person’s contributions at some point during the meeting. The other was to point out whenever someone’s ideas nicely connected to something another person had previously said.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“Even with the worst that life can throw at us, we have a remarkable capacity to adjust to new circumstances and get back to our former levels of happiness.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“Hyperbole is an excellent red flag on the route to real wisdom. Conduct”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“Normally Anthony would have written something like this: “I’m so sorry, but unfortunately I’m no longer going to be able to join you on the trip to KL. We’ve recently taken on three big projects and I’m finding myself swamped with all that entails. As a result, I just can’t carve out the time to make it possible, despite my best efforts. Huge apologies again.” By comparison, his positive no went something like this: “I was honored that you invited me to KL. The work you’re doing is fascinating and impressive [warmth]. As you might know, our side of the business has also grown enormously in the past few months. We’ve taken on three exciting new projects that will really change the way our clients think about marketing. I’ll be setting up the projects in the coming month, and it’s my responsibility to make them the success they deserve to be [his yes]. To do a good job, though, I’m having to let go of a lot of things. And sadly, one of them is the chance to come to KL. I’m disappointed, as I was looking forward to it [his no]. Please let me know if it would be helpful to connect you with people who might take my place and add value to the group—I have a few ideas. In the meantime, I wish you all the best for a fruitful trip [warmth].”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“You can’t avoid the fact that decisions sometimes benefit certain people more than others. But you can demonstrate that the process behind the decisions is fair.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“It’s why for every 20-degree increase in a day’s temperature, researchers found that car dealers sell 8.5 percent more convertibles.5 “It’s been sunny in the last few hours, so a convertible is the right investment for me,” goes the logic of your shortsighted automatic system.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“The more we place boundaries on the uncertainty—by acknowledging what we know for certain—the more manageable the remaining ambiguity feels to our brains.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“So what are these magical coaching questions? They’re based on something known as the “GROW model”—because they walk people through steps called the goal, reality, options, and way forward: Goal. What does the ideal outcome look like? Reality. What’s the current situation—the good and the bad? Options. What are the options for moving forward? (Always start with the other person’s ideas. Tell them you’re happy to add yours, but that you want to start with theirs.) Way forward. What is their first step going to be? When will they take it? What help do they need?”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“It’s just very difficult to come up with anything smart when you’re upset, angry, or tired. You can’t work when you feel under threat.”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life

“They had such a strong presumption that the banana would be yellow that their brains decided it actually was.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“another reason so many of us often feel overloaded is because of something called the planning fallacy.1 This describes the fact that we typically expect tasks to take less time than they actually do, because we base our estimates on one standout memory—our best past experience—rather than the average time it’s taken us to do similar tasks in the past.”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“Resolve dilemmas with greater ease. Ask “What could I do?” rather than “What should I do?”
― Caroline Webb, How To Have A Good Day: The Essential Toolkit for a Productive Day at Work and Beyond

“BEING DELIBERATE ABOUT THE DAY”
― Caroline Webb, How to Have a Good Day: Harness the Power of Behavioral Science to Transform Your Working Life