Katy Milkman > Quotes

“making hard things seem fun is a much better strategy than making hard things seem important”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“Research has proven time and again that rather than relying on willpower to resist temptation, we’re better off figuring out how to make good behaviors more gratifying in the short-term. Big payoffs far down the road just aren’t enough to keep us motivated.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“We all struggle to line up what we do with what we want.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“many of us choose not to adopt commitment devices because we undervalue them or are naïve about how much we need them, not because we don’t need them or are unwilling to risk the penalty.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“Behavior change is similar. You can use an all-purpose strategy that works well on average. Set tough goals and break them down into component steps. Visualize success. Work to create habits—tiny ones, atomic ones, keystone ones—following the advice laid out in self-help bestsellers. But you’ll get further faster if you customize your strategy: isolate the weakness”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“You’ll learn that making hard things seem fun is a much better strategy than making hard things seem important”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“The chart broke down why most Americans die earlier than they should. It turns out that the leading cause of premature death isn’t poor health care, difficult social circumstances, bad genes, or environmental toxins. Instead, an estimated 40 percent of premature deaths are the result of personal behaviors we can change. I’m talking about daily, seemingly small decisions about eating, drinking, exercise, smoking, sex, and vehicle safety. These decisions add up, producing hundreds of thousands of fatal cancers, heart attacks, and accidents each year.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“When policy makers, organizations, or scientists applied a one-size-fits-all strategy to change behavior, the results were mixed. But when they began by asking what stood in the way of progress—say, why their employees weren’t saving enough money or getting flu shots—and then developed targeted strategies to change behavior, the results were far better.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“Plans don't change minds - they only help us remember to do the things we already want to do”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“We think “future me” will be able to make good choices, but too often “present me” succumbs to temptation.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“insight: if you want to change your behavior or someone else’s, you’re at a huge advantage if you begin with a blank slate—a fresh start—and no old habits working against you.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“She learned that rather than perceiving time as a continuum, we tend to think about our lives in “episodes,” creating story arcs from the notable incidents, or chapters, in our lives. One chapter might start the day you move into your college dorm (“the college years”), another with your first job (“the consulting”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“The moral of this research to me is that temptation bundling certainly works best if you can actually restrict an indulgence to whenever you’re doing a task that requires an extra boost of motivation (such as making it possible to listen to audiobooks only at the gym, and not in your car or on the bus). But merely suggesting that people try temptation bundling is enough to produce benefits that last.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“Agassi could see the wisdom in this assessment. He’d always been a perfectionist, but until Gilbert’s remarks, he’d viewed that trait as a strength rather than a weakness.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“An engineer can’t design a successful structure without first carefully accounting for the forces of opposition (say, wind resistance or gravity). So engineers always attempt to solve problems by first identifying the obstacles to success. Now, studying behavior change, I began to understand the power and promise of applying this same strategy. It’s the very strategy that turned Andre Agassi’s tennis career around by helping him refocus on his opponents’ weaknesses.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“According to one recent study, the average adult forgets three things each day, ranging from pin numbers to chores to wedding anniversaries. We’re so forgetful, in part, because it’s difficult for information to stick in our brains, especially if we’ve only thought about it once or twice.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“I like to remind cynics that if you flip the discouraging statistics about New Year’s resolutions on their head, you’ll see that 20 percent of the goals set each January succeed. That’s a lot of people who’ve changed their lives for the better simply because they resolved to try in the first place.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“Temptation bundling entails allowing yourself to engage in a guilty pleasure (such as binge-watching TV) only when pursuing a virtuous or valuable activity that you tend to dread (such as exercise). Temptation bundling solves two problems at once. It can help reduce overindulgence in temptations and increase time spent on activities that serve your long-term goals. Gamification is another way to make goal pursuit instantly gratifying. It involves making something that isn’t a game feel more engaging and less monotonous by adding gamelike features such as symbolic rewards, a sense of competition, and leaderboards. Gamification works when players “buy in” to the game. It can backfire if players feel the game is being imposed on them.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“things seem fun is a much better strategy”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“In one study, we described March 20 as “the first day of spring” for some students and “the third Thursday in March” for others. In another study, we described May 14 as “the first day of Penn’s summer break” for some students and “Penn’s administrative day” (a meaningless designation we invented) for others. Confirming our suspicion about the usefulness of fresh start dates, in both of these studies (and others), when we suggested that a date was associated with a new beginning (such as “the first day of spring”), students viewed it as a more attractive time to kick-start goal pursuit than when we presented it as an unremarkable day (such as “the third Thursday in March”).”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“The prevalence of naïfs suggests (not surprisingly) that one important function of a good manager is to set up systems that impose costs and restrictions on employees whenever temptation could stand in the way of wise long-term decisions.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“Ethan and Nancy believe that their study highlights a common mistake companies make with gamification. Gamification is unhelpful and can even be harmful if people feel that their employer is forcing them to participate in “mandatory fun.” And if a game is a dud (and it’s a bit of an art to create a game that isn’t), it doesn’t do anyone any good. It would be like temptation bundling your workout with a boring lecture.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“Como es natural, pensar en el dónde y el cuándo para cualquier cosa que quiera hacer es una estrategia a la que recurro de forma constante en mi vida personal y profesional.”
― Katy Milkman, Cómo cambiar: La ciencia te ayuda a ser quien quieres ser

“The biggest challenge with cash commitment devices isn’t their effectiveness; it’s getting more people comfortable with the idea of using them. And it’s reasonable to have some hesitation. As great as these results sound, maybe you’re just not ready to impose costly restrictions or fines on yourself in case you don’t hit all of your goals.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“Every book is like a conversation with its author. So you have to be picky about the books you read. With your limited time, you want a conversation partner who can teach you something you didn’t know.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“But what impresses me most is that so many doctors were influenced by their pledge even though breaking it had no monetary penalty. A pledge like this stands in stark contrast to cash commitments, locked bank accounts, and deadline penalties, which I call “hard commitments” because they involve a more concrete cost. The clinician pledge is a prime example of what I call a “soft commitment”—a commitment that comes with only a psychological price tag for failure.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“This book will offer many answers to that question (the most important being “It depends”), but one is particularly relevant to Prasad’s problem. It starts with a remarkable medical success story.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“(1) «¿A qué hora prevé ir a las urnas?»; (2) «¿Desde dónde prevé hacerlo?»; y (3) «¿Qué prevé estar haciendo antes de salir hacia allí?». Con estas tres preguntas se pretendía que los votantes establecieran las señales (momento, lugar y actividad) que les recordarían ir a votar.”
― Katy Milkman, Cómo cambiar: La ciencia te ayuda a ser quien quieres ser

“Google, he explained, offered its employees a wide range of benefits and programs designed to make their lives and jobs better and to solve such problems as undersaving for retirement, overuse of social media, physical inactivity, unhealthy eating, and smoking.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be

“. I was particularly taken with the idea of “nudging” people toward better choices, which was gaining popularity around the time I started my PhD.”
― Katy Milkman, How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be