How We Could Change Our Own Default Settings
Choice is a concept that intrigues me. For anyone else interested in the same topic, I highly recommend The Paradox of Choice and The Power of Habit. Both are essential reading. We already covered why habits are important in our discussion on signaling. Here’s a more practical look at what we can do to change our habits (more specifically defaults) and why we should be interested in doing so.
The adage goes, the easiest choice is to not make a choice. This is true in more ways than one. Let’s take a favorite of mine, podcasts, and see what we can find. To anyone who doesn’t listen to podcasts, I understand why. Not only was there an overwhelming amount of choice several years ago when I began listening, but the number of podcasts now seems superfluous. If you only had time to listen to one, how could you possibly choose? It’s probably easier to not force yourself to choose. However, what you’re missing out on is the long tail of podcasting. There really is something for everyone. Even if you’re an Animal Crossing fanatic, there are multiple podcasts for you.
Let’s take a step back from specific podcasts, because that is more of a nuanced choice. How are you listening to podcasts? Take the iPhone for example. If you’re new to listening to podcasts you’ll notice that, by default, you’re using the Apple Podcast app. If you’ve been listening to podcasts regularly and still use the Apple podcast app, hopefully you’ll change your mind by the end of reading this. The platform you use to listen to podcasts isn’t something you regularly think about, if at all. It’s also a default option.
From my experience, only isolated incidents serve to prompt revisiting a default. That’s how I finally realized I needed glasses. If you’re not provided with the opportunity to step back and reassess something objectively then it’ll remain overlooked. Here we’re talking about a choice of podcast platform.
On a bigger scale, identifying decisions that have second and third order effects leads us to our most important defaults. Economists studying these topics use “nudges” to try and change our default behavior to benefit society. One example is having employee 401(k) contributions be the default instead of being opt-in. The end goal is to make good behavior the easiest choice to make. That would make an ideal default.
So how do we make our own individual default options better behavior? An example from the Choiceology podcast is economist Dan Ariely setting his desk height higher at night, so when he wakes up he’s more likely to work while standing. The same reasoning applies when people getting into the habit of exercising in the morning find it easier when they get their clothes ready the night before.
If you’re sensing a common theme, it might be how defaults better allow us to navigate the time of day. Here’s an ongoing problem I’ve been dealing with. I have quite the sweet tooth, and recently I’ve found myself indulging in some ice cream late at night. For much of the day I can keep myself eating healthy, but late at night I am less able to resist eating ice cream. How we have less mental bandwidth to make decisions later in the day is a whole other topic, but I know that’s what is affecting me. Instead of developing herculean willpower, I’m changing the default time of day I would normally eat.
It doesn’t have to be with eating, or podcasting (seriously, Overcast > Apple Podcasts), but try and think of a default behavior you normally wouldn’t question. Perhaps changing one behavior will make patterns easier to see. Just to be clear, I’m referencing how I accidentally found out I needed glasses.