Tim Harford's Blog, page 36

Seven Games, by Oliver Roeder

I’ve been sent an advanced copy of Oliver Roeder’s book Seven Games, and of course I’m delighted both by the premise and its execution. Roeder, a game theorist, puzzle fan and keen game player, dives deep into the world of high-level play of seven classic games: Checkers, Chess, Go, Backgammon, Poker, Scrabble and Bridge.

There’s lots to enjoy here: Roeder writes effortlessly, vividly portrays what it’s like to compete with the world’s best Scrabble players – or in the increasingly niche world of championship Bridge. He meets the best players, explores the appeal of these games, their distinct subcultures, and the influence of computers. Lots of good ideas. (I was slightly sad not to see Dungeons and Dragons in there, but I suppose it’s such a radically different gaming experience that it wouldn’t really have made sense…)

The book is out tomorrow in the US – not for a few more weeks in the UK I think. But worth a look.

The paperback of “The Data Detective” is out on NEXT WEEK in the US and Canada. Title elsewhere: “How To Make The World Add Up”.

“One of the most wonderful collections of stories that I have read in a long time… fascinating.”- Steve Levitt (Freakonomics)

“If you aren’t in love with stats before reading this book, you will be by the time you’re done.”- Caroline Criado Perez (Invisible Women)

I’ve set up a storefront on Bookshop in the United States and the United Kingdom – have a look and see all my recommendations; Bookshop is set up to support local independent retailers. Links to Bookshop and Amazon may generate referral fees.

Omicron optimist, pessimist or fatalist – which are you?

Is this the point at which we should shrug our shoulders and give up? Omicron has prompted three kinds of reaction: optimism, pessimism and fatalism. The optimists argue that the variant is “nature’s vaccine”, a mild and transmissible virus that will quickly infect billions, triggering an immune response that will provide protection against deadlier variants such as Delta. The pandemic is over, and we won.

The pessimists believe that, while Omicron is probably less dangerous than Delta, attacking lung cells less aggressively, it may still be dangerous enough. It partially dodges vaccines, and many people have yet to have access to a vaccine anyway. If it does quickly infect billions, then hospitals across the world will be overwhelmed. The pandemic is over, and the virus won.

The fatalists argue that if everyone agrees that billions are about to be infected, then eat, drink and be merry. If it didn’t get you at Christmas, it will surely get you by Easter.

What’s confusing is that all three views may be right. Omicron is quite plausibly mild, catastrophic and inevitable all at once.

Fatalism is particularly understandable. Omicron seems to be one of the most transmissible viruses ever discovered. In the UK, the first cases were reported in late November. By the end of December, the Office for National Statistics estimated that one in 15 English residents were currently infected, presumably mostly with Omicron. In a highly vaccinated population, the variant went from nowhere to everywhere in a month.

This transmissibility does suggest that the vast majority of people will be experiencing an Omicron infection over the next few months, and whether or not you think it is mild, that suggests there is little point in hiding.

But there are several weak points in the fatalists’ argument. The most obvious is that you never really know with this virus; maybe Omicron will infect fewer people than we think.

There is also the familiar need to “flatten the curve”. Even if everyone is infected, it makes a big difference to hospitals if those infections can be spread out over months rather than weeks. And across the globe, 30 million vaccine doses are being administered every day. Whether first doses or boosters, they all help the body mount a defence. Each day that Omicron can be delayed adds to the wall of protection.

Then there’s the appearance of fresh therapies for Covid-19. The new drug Paxlovid seems to be an astonishingly effective treatment, but it will take months to scale up production from hundreds of thousands of doses to hundreds of millions. Meanwhile there is nothing foolish about playing for time.

But there is a subtler flaw in the case for fatalism, says Joshua Gans of the University of Toronto’s Rotman School. Implicit in the fatalists’ argument is that you’ll either get Covid-19 once now, or once later.

“If we were having this conversation about flu,” says Gans, “you wouldn’t be talking about whether to catch flu now or later. You could easily catch flu now and later. The same is possible with Covid.”

Flu mutates endlessly, which is why many people receive a flu vaccine every year. But Omicron has demonstrated that Sars-Cov-2 can also mutate more dramatically than we had hoped. There are no prizes for picking up an Omicron infection now if Pi, a new immunity-evading variant, will be with us this summer.

So what to do? I would not blame anyone for being extra careful at this point, but personally I have taken a few small steps towards the fatalists’ camp. I’m boosted, fit and under 50, and with three children at school I suspect that Omicron will come knocking soon enough. And while there is no guarantee that Omicron will be the final wave of the pandemic, it’s plausible that it might be.

What worries me is that governments might think in the same way. That could be disastrous. When we are confronted with a near miss, there are two possible responses: breathe a sigh of relief or treat it as a warning. Omicron is a near miss: vaccine-dodging, astonishingly transmissible, but probably not severe enough to kill tens of millions of people.

But what if the next variant combines Omicron’s transmissibility with greater capacity to dodge vaccines and cause more severe illness? The original Sars virus was fatal in 10 per cent of cases; something like a Sars-Omicron mash-up could kill a billion people.

Omicron might be “nature’s vaccine”, but it might also be the gateway to hell.

Is this likely? No. But it is more likely now than it seemed two months ago. Recommended Martin Sandbu To live with Covid, we must plan for a permanent pandemic While I am starting to relax, governments should be on high alert. The FT’s Martin Sandbu rightly argued that they should prepare contingency plans in case future lockdowns are needed, with clear rules and well-designed support for affected sectors.

Other preparations may be even more important. We punished South Africa for detecting Omicron early. That’s insane. We should be supporting strong viral surveillance systems. We should also be accelerating the development of vaccines that work against all coronaviruses and subsidising the capacity to produce and distribute future vaccines more quickly.

I am hopeful about 2022. Omicron may well be the last wave of the pandemic. It is quite understandable that individual citizens are starting to relax. But if governments become complacent, that is unforgivable.

Written for and first published in the Financial Times on 14 January 2022.

The paperback of The Data Detective is out on 1 February in the US and Canada. Title elsewhere: How To Make The World Add Up.

I’ve set up a storefront on Bookshop in the United States and the United Kingdom. Links to Bookshop and Amazon may generate referral fees.

The Expectation Effect, by David Robson

There’s a fine line to walk between writing a book that argues that our mental state is surprisingly powerful, and writing a book that argues that if you ask the universe for a gift, the universe will respond.

But @D_A_Robson walks the line skilfully here with The Expectation Effect.

He deploys a deft mix of storytelling and scientific studies (many people try, not everyone succeeds) to argue that placebo-type effects are more common and more powerful than we expect. Here are a few that surprised me:

In the US, placebos are working better than ever. Why? Plausibly because a) Advertising endlessly sings the praises of wonder-drugs, so Americans expect a lot from their pills and b) People have been told about the placebo effect, so they expect even a placebo treatment to work well.

Nocebo effects can also be astonishingly powerful – Robson cites one case of a woman in a trial of acupuncture-before-C-section. She was told that the acupuncture could sometimes cause dizziness or fainting, or in rare cases “cardiovascular collapse”. Worrying. She promptly suffered a cardiovascular collapse, heart rate down to 23 beats a minute, and needed to be revived with a drip. What’s striking is that she never actually had any acupuncture – she was in the control group…

Robson notes that arachnophobes perceive spiders as objectively larger and faster. (As I explained to my non arachnophobic wife: her warped perceptions cause her to falsely see slow, tiny spiders.)

Another surprise: if you give people a milkshake and tell them it is “indulgent” and “decadent” and has 620 calories, people’s ghrelin levels respond, priming them to burn more calories and eat less. The same milkshake, branded as just 140 calories of “guilt free satisfaction”, induces no ghrelin response at all. More broadly, if you eat the same food but convince yourself you’re eating something indulgent, you feel less hungry afterwards. If you keep telling yourself you’re on a strict diet, you feel hungrier.

Lots of other interesting ideas in the book. I have no doubt that some of these studies will collapse on close inspection – that is the way of things – but Robson marshalls a huge range of diverse evidence here, and describes it very well. I learned a lot and enjoyed the book hugely.

The paperback of The Data Detective is out on 1 February in the US and Canada. Title elsewhere: How To Make The World Add Up.

I’ve set up a storefront on Bookshop in the United States and the United Kingdom. Links to Bookshop and Amazon may generate referral fees.

Assorted links

Publication day approaches for the paperback of “The Data Detective” (1 Feb). As always, pre-orders of the paperback, positive reviews if you’ve read the hardback, spreading the word – all are so valuable and very gratefully received.

The UK edition of the same book, “How To Make The World Add Up“, was top of the Sunday Times business bestseller list for 2021. I would be delighted if US and Canadian audiences were able to discover what the buzz is about.

This episode of @RiskyTalkPod from @PuzzlesTheWill @ChloeColliver2 @LauraEdelson2 @Sander_vdLinden and @d_Spiegel discussing misinformation and what to do about it, was outstanding. None of the usual hand-wringing – lots of solid practical advice, policy analysis and evidence.

I’ve been listening to Stewart Brand’s short audiobook, “The Maintenance Race“. Absolutely outstanding. Compelling storytelling, but more importantly Stewart Brand helps you see the world with fresh eyes.

Arriving on my book pile last week was @JohnsonWhitney ‘s “Smart Growth” – applying the S-curve idea of innovation diffusion to personal and business growth: exploring, accelerating, consolidating.

I also had a chance to browse “Making Numbers Count” by @KarlaStarr and @ChipHeath. Lots of excellent advice about how to use statistics in communication to be clear and persuasive.

In this post @TylerCowen offers his advice about how to make long term investments in your health. (EG “Don’t drink.” “Don’t eat junk food.” “Be happy. Have goals and projects. Have sex. Have good social networks.”)

What I love about the post is not the advice but the framing: “I do not think I am the expert you should consult… common sense appears to yield some broad dividends, or will involve no real cost.  I think the answers that follow are pretty stupid and uninteresting.” More people should couch their advice in such terms.

A reminder that am performing alongisde the Orchestra of the Age of Englightenment; come along either in London or Oxford on Sunday 30th January 2022. Music, readings, a talk from me – it should be lots of fun. Come along!

Oh – and @BBCMoreorLess is back on air (podcast, or Radio 4 9am Wednesdays). Sorry, I should have mentioned. Please send your ideas to MoreOrLess@bbc.co.uk. Thank you!

The hidden costs of cost-benefit analysis

I began last week’s column by declaring that life is full of difficult decisions. Many of us, faced with such dilemmas, resort to a list of pros and cons. Perhaps the most famous such list is that composed by Charles Darwin in July 1838, as he contemplated proposing to his cousin Emma Wedgwood.

Under “Marry” he included: “Children — (if it Please God)— Constant companion, (& friend in old age) who will feel interested in one . . . better than a dog anyhow . . . Charms of music & female chit-chat.— These things good for one’s health.— but terrible loss of time.”

“Not Marry” included: “Freedom to go where one liked . . . Conversation of clever men at clubs — Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle.— to have the expense & anxiety of children — perhaps quarrelling — Loss of time.”

In the end he decided that even after double-counting “loss of time”, the charms of “a nice soft wife on a sofa” were undeniable. Charles proposed. Emma accepted. I am not aware if she made her own list before doing so. The couple had 10 children.

Economists have their own version of the list of pros and cons, called cost-benefit analysis. The principle is very similar, although the hope is to be a little more systematic. Darwin, for example, did not quantify the relative merits of the conversation of clever men at clubs and the charms of music & female chit-chat. For a proper cost-benefit analysis that will not do; clever conversation may be worth twice as much as female chit-chat, or half as much, but the relative value must be quantified. (Dollars are a convenient unit of measurement, but what matters is not that everything is given a dollar value, but that everything is compared on the same scale.)

On the surface, cost-benefit analysis is all very rational, and admirably well-suited to decide whether to build a bridge or abolish a regulation. However a new article in the Journal of Benefit-Cost Analysis by Bent Flyvbjerg and Dirk Bester argues that cost-benefit analysis “is broken”. Flyvbjerg and Bester assemble and analyse a data set of more than 2,000 public projects — bridges, buildings, bus transit systems, dams, power plants, railways, roads and tunnels. They conclude that costs have been systematically underestimated. This is broadly true regardless of when or where the project was commissioned, or what type of project it is.

Even allowing for this tendency for projects to run over budget, there are more catastrophic cost overruns than one might expect. There is less data on benefits, but there is some evidence of benefits being overestimated for public transit projects, and no sign that the large cost overruns are in any way compensated for by surprisingly large benefits.

These findings are sobering, if not entirely surprising. As Flyvbjerg and Bester are at pains to point out, “cost overrun” isn’t really the right description of what keeps happening. “Cost underestimate” is better. The problem is not that every project engineer in the world is incapable of delivering to a reasonable budget; it is that the budgets are never reasonable. The infrastructure we see around us is born of rose-tinted spreadsheets and hype.

So what is the point of cost-benefit analysis if all the costs and benefits being analysed are flights of fantasy? The only answer I can think of, with apologies to Winston Churchill, is that cost-benefit analysis is the worst form of evaluating decisions, except for all those other forms which have been tried from time to time.

Alternatives include decision-making by HIPPO (highest-paid person’s opinion), decision-making by sound bite or decision-making by whatever polls well with people who may not have spent a moment’s thought on the matter. These are not good ways to think through complex, long-term infrastructure projects or wide-reaching regulations.

In his book The Cost-Benefit Revolution, Cass Sunstein (an academic and Obama administration official) argued that cost-benefit analysis was a useful way to structure decision-making, forcing us to think systemically, articulate our assumptions, ask good questions and notice where we lack good answers. This might be true; then again, it might not.

An alternative view is that cost-benefit analysis is a black-box process that hides inconvenient assumptions and shuts down debate.

I find myself reminded that cost-benefit analysis is itself a kind of algorithm. Last week I argued that algorithms serve us best when they are properly scrutinised and tested. That is certainly true for cost-benefit analysis; it should help to structure decision-making and inform public debate, rather than to bypass both.

Having argued that cost-benefit analysis is “broken”, Flyvbjerg and Bester propose fixing rather than replacing it — for example by improving the accuracy of cost estimates through better data, independent audits and performance incentives. I agree. The method is open to misuse but is too valuable to abandon.

Darwin, in the end, seems to have made his decision in an outburst of emotion: “My God, it is intolerable to think of spending ones whole life, like a neuter bee, working, working, & nothing after all.” That is probably as good a way as any to decide on marriage. But if the question is whether to build a high-speed railway line, to deny and then issue emergency visas to truck drivers, or to leave a large trading bloc, decisions made in an outburst of emotion may be decisions we will find ourselves regretting.

Written for and first published in the Financial Times on 8 October 2021.

The paperback of “How To Make The World Add Up” is now out. US title: “The Data Detective”.

“One of the most wonderful collections of stories that I have read in a long time… fascinating.”- Steve Levitt (Freakonomics)

“If you aren’t in love with stats before reading this book, you will be by the time you’re done.”- Caroline Criado Perez (Invisible Women)

Assorted Links

Business School professor Christian Stadler names his “best ten business books of 2021“. A good list, including “The Data Detective” (US/Can readers can pre-order the paperback, out 1 Feb).

Michael Bungay Stanier’s “How To Begin” is out tomorrow. Classic self-help, about setting and achieving worthy goals. If you suspect you need to read this book you are probably right.

Dave Morris offers sharp advice as to how to sketch out an idea for a story. Aspiring novelists and scriptwriters, pay attention!

My colleagues at Pushkin have released a superbly rich audiobook, Miracle and Wonder. It consists of interviews with Paul Simon, new performances of his best and most interesting songs, and typically intriguing analysis by Malcolm Gladwell about why Paul Simon is so enduringly creative. I loved it.

On video, my FT colleague Martin Sandbu @MESandbu presents the case for a universal basic income.

In my book, Messy, I argued that Erwin Rommel, Tyson Fury, Donald Trump and Magnus Carlsen had one thing in common. They would rather make a flawed move that put their opponent off balance than make a perfect move that left their opponent feeling more comfortable. New evidence here that Carlsen is still doing it, and it’s still working for him.

I am exploring other, less combative, themes from Messy as part of an event with the Orchestra of the Age of Englightenment; come along either in London or Oxford on Sunday 30th January 2022. It will be awesome!

Treacle Walker, by Alan Garner

“It was a tune with wings, trampling things, tightened strings, boggarts and bogles and brags on their feet; the man in the oak, sickness and fever, that set in long, lasting sleep the whole great world with the sweetness of sound the bone did play.”

Where to start with this beautiful little book? I’ve loved Alan Garner’s work ever since encountering the (stone-cold classic) The Weirdstone of Brisingamen as a child, but this dense, intensely poetic short story is something else again.

Don’t come expecting a classic plot with orcs and goblins – nor svarts and mara, either. The story is short (and simple?) enough, but suitably mystifying. The ideas seem totally original yet as familiar as fairy tale. The imagery is strange, intoxicating, vivid. A gem – or a glass dobber.

The paperback of The Data Detective is out on 1 February in the US and Canada. Title elsewhere: How To Make The World Add Up.

I’ve set up a storefront on Bookshop in the United States and the United Kingdom. Links to Bookshop and Amazon may generate referral fees.

The life-saving magic of playing games

What’s kept you going during the pandemic? For some people, it’s been an exercise kick. For others, the day’s first glass of wine. For me, it’s been a game of “let’s pretend” with a conclave of imaginary wizards. It takes all sorts, but my survival mechanism has been to play games.

Formal board games are very old. The book Board Games in 100 Moves, by Ian Livingstone and James Wallis, dates the Egyptian game Senet back to 3100BC, but board games are probably much older. Across the Middle East, archaeologists have excavated 8,000-year-old objects that seem to be game boards.

Several technological changes have added impetus to the development of board games: the printing press allowed games to move beyond abstract geometric boards; cardboard boxes enabled complex games with bespoke pieces and rules to be made and sold.

Then, of course, there is the internet. Sites such as BoardGameGeek allow gaming fans to review and explain new games to each other, while BoardGameArena provides a platform to play board games online with anyone in the world. That said, my wife and I often play each other on BoardGameArena while sitting in the same room — it’s faster than breaking out the cardboard and dice.

Does this help with pandemic resilience? I am sure of it. About a year ago, a team of psychologists (Kate Sweeny, Renlai Zhou and others) published a study which asked how people had best coped during strict lockdowns in China early in 2020.

“Two promising candidates for effective coping,” they wrote, “are flow and mindfulness.”

“Flow is a state in which people become absorbed in an enjoyable activity, such that they become blind to their external environment,” explained the researchers. In contrast, “mindfulness is a state of being aware of and attentive to one’s current internal and external experience.”

These two rather desirable mental states seem to stand in opposition to each other, until one remembers a third: anxious doomscrolling through bottomless social media feeds. This habit is perfectly understandable — but it is neither flow nor mindfulness.

The researchers concluded that the people experiencing states of flow or mindfulness were also the people coping better with strict lockdowns. We can only speculate as to which way causation ran here, but faced with longer lockdowns, flow in particular seemed to help.

Flow is all very well — but how to achieve it? It’s not easy at any time, and particularly not over the past two years. But that brings me back to the imaginary wizards: for me, many of the times when I have lost myself in the pleasure and the challenge of the moment are the times when I have been running imaginative role-playing games for my friends. (Role-playing games, such as Dungeons & Dragons, are structured improvisations in which players take on the role of someone else. In the theatre of the mind, they solve problems and explore the pleasures and dangers of another time and place.)

In 1938, the Dutch sociologist Johan Huizinga tried to explain what made a game a game. His definition had two noteworthy elements. The first is that games are fun — or more precisely they are played for their own sake. If you’re playing a game for another reason, such as a financial reward or as an educational exercise, it ceases to be a game.

The second is that games have a “magic circle” around them: there is an agreement that the normal rules of behaviour do not apply. We can extort money from our friends (Monopoly), betray our spouses (Diplomacy), kill our children (Risk) or lie to everyone (Poker) — and it’s all fine. What happens in the game stays in the game.

Most games also present an absorbing challenge. Combine fun, a challenge and the magic circle, and it is easy to see why players are able to immerse themselves in those precious feelings of flow.

Two decades ago, Corey Keyes, a sociologist and psychologist at Emory University, used the word “languishing” to refer to people who were neither flourishing nor severely depressed. Adam Grant, the author of Think Again, has argued that languishing is “the dominant emotion of 2021”.

Flow is an antidote to languishing, and Adam Grant found flow by playing Mario Kart online with his children and with distant family members. It’s a good choice: immersive, challenging, fun, sociable and perfectly feasible under the strictest of lockdowns.

My own preference was to gather online with some of my oldest friends. We pretended to be wizards in a game I created, inspired by the work of Ursula Le Guin. Nerdy? Weird? I don’t care. I like to think that I have a challenging and engaging job, but those Thursday evening gaming sessions were the most difficult and absorbing thing I would do all week. In a sea of troubles, those evenings with friends were an island paradise.

This year, we said farewell to Reuben Klamer, the designer of The Game of Life, to Steve Perrin, who created the influential role-playing game RuneQuest, and to Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist who developed the idea of flow. The obituaries didn’t make a connection between the three men, but it’s clear enough.

If you want to feel energised and fulfilled, even in an apparently endless pandemic, get yourself into a state of flow. Not sure how to find your flow? Play a game.

Written for and first published in the Financial Times on 10 December 2021.

The paperback of “The Data Detective” is now on 1 February in the US and Canada. Title elsewhere: “How To Make The World Add Up”.

“One of the most wonderful collections of stories that I have read in a long time… fascinating.”- Steve Levitt (Freakonomics)

“If you aren’t in love with stats before reading this book, you will be by the time you’re done.”- Caroline Criado Perez (Invisible Women)

I’ve set up a storefront on Bookshop in the United States and the United Kingdom – have a look and see all my recommendations; Bookshop is set up to support local independent retailers. Links to Bookshop and Amazon may generate referral fees.

Book of the Week: The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

My resolution this year is to read (and review) more books, so I thought I might start with a book that promises to help me form better habits: (@CDuhigg) Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit.

The book, which is a Gladwell-influenced science-plus-stories-plus-practical-advice offering, was a big hit about a decade ago, but not something I’d settled down to read before. I was impressed: although the style is occasionally breathless, Duhigg spins a good yarn and has found a good selection of unfamiliar tales to tell. It’s a pleasure to read.

As for the topics, Duhigg begins with the invididual psychology of the habit loop: a trigger, followed by an automatic pattern of behaviour, followed by a reward. Lots of examples here of pathological and less pathological habits. The most interesting idea (which seems plausible but I’ve not checked) is that it’s much easier to change a habit than eliminate it. In other words, you can start with the same cue but then try to plug in a different reward.

Duhigg perhaps influenced Cal Newport’s excellent Digital Minimalism, a book which argues (among other things) that rather than trying to simply get off social media (for example) you should try to replace unsatisfying social media activity with something you value more highly and which may tap into similar values. Instead of Twitter, read a book. Instead of following friends on Facebook, arrange to hang out with friends in person.

Later chapters broaden (and loosen) the argument to discuss the “habits” of organisations and societies. Very interesting case studies – for example, when Alcoa decided to obsess about safety, safety, safety, it also became a better-run, more profitable business. The “keystone habit” of thinking about safety fostered a habit of open communication, collaboration, sharing ideas, streamlining processes and investing in new equipment. Fascinating. Does it generalise? I’d love to know. But food for thought.

The paperback of The Data Detective is out on 1 February in the US and Canada. Title elsewhere: How To Make The World Add Up.

I’ve set up a storefront on Bookshop in the United States and the United Kingdom. Links to Bookshop and Amazon may generate referral fees.

How to make New Year’s Resolutions that you will keep

As David Epstein @DavidEpstein recently pointed out in his newsletter, Range Widely, the first of January is a great time to make resolutions.

Behavioural economist Katy Milkman @Katy_Milkman, with Hengchen Dai and Jason Riis, discovered evidence for a “fresh start effect” – people are more likely to take action towards a goal if a landmark date (such as the first day of spring) is made salient.

All very good. But in the spirit of friendly debate, I pointed out to David that making resolutions is not really the problem. The problem is keeping them.

And a lot of behavioural science focuses on measuring quick wins – signing up for a gym membership, rather than training for the 100th time – so we probably have more answers than we want on how to motivate short-term actions, and fewer than we need on long-term stickability.

David and I each agreed to go away and think about it. @Katy_Milkman kindly offered some pointers, too. And although I am still thinking about it (watch this space) the time feels right to reveal what I have learned so far…

Step One: Make a plan. Let’s say your resolution is “get in shape in 2022”. Fine. But how, exactly? Be specific. If you’re planning to start running, when? Consider committing to specific regular actions – say, a weekly exercise class rather than a generic gym membership.

“Beyond Good Intentions“, a paper from Rogers, Milkman, John and Norton, finds that people are more likely to follow through on aspirations if they’ve been prompted to make a specific action plan.

Step Two: Don’t just step on the accelerator, release the handbrake. (This idea from Kurt Lewin, via Daniel Kahneman.) Let’s say your resolution is to read more books. Ask yourself why you aren’t already reading more books. What’s been getting in the way? Can you make a specific plan to remove the obstacles?

Step Three: Make only one resolution. The idea of “keystone habits”, popularised in Charles Duhigg’s book The Power of Habit, suggests that one good habit can lead to others. This is a plausible idea, but it’s probably best to start with the one good habit and shelve the others for now.

I find this difficult. I love making lists and typically at New Year I have half a dozen things I’d like to achieve or improve. But this year I’m going to start with just one. The list isn’t going anywhere – there’s always the 1st of February and the 1st of March, after all.

Step Four: If you’re trying to eliminate a bad habit, try to replace it with a good one. Duhigg argues that it’s far easier to modify a habit than eliminate it. Use the old trigger and perhaps the old reward, but substitute a new behaviour.

For example, let’s say you want to quit Facebook. Identify when you tend to reflexively check Facebook, and figure out what you’re going to do instead. Maybe you want to read a trashy novel. Keep it on your desk – or maybe beside the lavatory. Or maybe the plan is to try to call old friends, and every time you feel the itch to check Facebook, make the phone call instead.

To summarise: make a specific plan, identify obstacles to keeping your resolution, make only one resolution at a time, and find positive activities to substitute for bad habits.

There’s more to say, but I’ll say it another time. I recommend Duhigg’s book, and Katy Milkman’s How To Change has become the bible on this topic. Also look out for a new book from Ayelet Fishbach, Get It Done.