Decisions, Decisions

Can You Spot a Coincidence?

Dan Goldstein — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 15:16:35 +0000

What is the probability of dealing five cards and getting:

The ace of hearts
The king of hearts
The queen of hearts
The jack of hearts and
The 10 of hearts?

Is is higher or lower than the probability of getting:

The 6 of clubs
The 2 of diamonds
The 4 of hearts
The 7 of spades
The 9 of spades?

Well, which is it, higher or lower?

Many are surprised to learn that both hands have the exact same probability of being dealt. All sets of 5 cards are equally probable, it's just that the eye picks up the first set as an amazing coincidence (coinciding with the set of great poker hands) and the the second looks like nothing at all (unless its digits make up your ZIP code). So there are coincidences everywhere, it's just that some stand out more to our eyes.

At the same time, "coincidental" things happening can indicate that something is amiss. If your neighbor keeps winning the lottery and happens to have a brother who works for the lottery, we might suspect that he is not winning multiple times due to chance alone. Scientists think the same way. They'll do an experiment, let's say to test a cold remedy, and they'll get data from the control group (who unknowingly took a placebo) and the experimental group (who took the real thing). When the randomly-assigned experimental group has colds that last fewer days on average, scientists will calculate the probability that the data could have come out that way even if the experimental group's pill was a placebo too. When the probability is small (a common standard is less than 5% or 1%) that of the one group would have shorter-lasting colds by chance alone, the scientist thinks: "well, one of two things must be happening: Either the experimental drug has some effect, or we have here is a coincidence."

This brings us to the topic du jour. On September 6th, the winning Bulgarian lottery numbers were:

4, 15, 23, 24, 35 and 42.

Amazing? Hardly. But on the very next play of the lottery the winning numbers were:

4, 15, 23, 24, 35 and 42.

Amazing? Yes. Coincidence? Maybe. Shenanigans? Maybe. A record setting eighteen people bet on the winning numbers the second time around. In a small country like Bulgaria, is that a coincidence? According to the BBC an investigation is underway. David Smith has done his own analysis of the problem and figures that, given conservative assumptions, there's just over a 1% chance of a back-to-back drawings somewhere in the world over a 50-year period.

David concludes the Bulgarian lottery result "is not so quite so surprising after all".

According to Smith, the probability of the data given the hypothesis of randomness is 1%. And what do most scientists do when the probability of the data given the null is less than 5%?

Will Obama's automatic savings plans save the day?

Dan Goldstein — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 16:15:09 +0000

The New York Times has an interesting article called Savings Accounts for All: Simple but not Easy, which talks of the Obama administration's plans to set up an automatic IRAs (Individual Retirement Accounts) for workers in the USA. This is clearly policy in the behavioral economics / Nudge tradition, which is no surprise as Nudge author Cass Sunstein will be named head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs in the present administration. The article even mentions research on the effects of autoenrollment, though it would have been nice had the NYT named the academics who carried out the research. Since the article does not, I'll provide some citation love here:

Brigitte C Madrian & Dennis F Shea. (2001). The Power of Suggestion: Inertia in 401 (k) Participation and Savings Behavior. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(4), 1149-1187.
Richard H. Thaler & Shlomo Benartzi (2004) Save More Tomorrow Using Behavioral Economics to Increase Employee Saving. Journal of Political Economy, 112 (1, pt. 2), S164-S187.

(On a sidenote, the article mentions that in the proposed plan "There would be a standardized default investment, probably some kind of mutual fund with a mix of stocks and bonds that gets more conservative over time." Did you know that among Finance scholars there isn't universal agreement that portfolios should get more conservative with age? Some think one ought to pick the right asset allocation and stick with it throughout life. See this clearly-written article for a review.)

What do you think? Will auto-enrolling people in IRAs help more than it hurts? Will the Obama administration be able to overcome all the roadblocks to making it happen?

Let's find the world's best player of this game

Dan Goldstein — Wed, 12 Nov 2008 16:52:23 +0000

Do you have brainy friends in your social network? We're trying to find the best players in the world at a game of skill and luck.

About half a year ago, I posted here a game of skill and luck. Many people played, and it was interesting to see the variation in scores. Some people got it, and some just didn't. Then I had an idea: let's try to find some of the best players in the world at this.

But how? While the world's a big place, through social networks, it can get much smaller.

As my host (I'm currently a visiting researcher at Yahoo! Research) Duncan Watts, and others have shown, a short number of email forwards can connect two people living on opposite sides of the world: the "six degrees of separation" idea. The landmark experiment Watts was reviving was carried about by Stanley Milgram and published right here in Psychology Today (Stanley Milgram, "The Small World Problem", Psychology Today, 1967, Vol. 2, 60-67)!

The same idea should work for finding smart people as well. If each person who plays the game then forwards it on to some people they know who are even better at the game, eventually we may come across a person who really gets it and achieves a fantastically long winning streak.

So, let's give it a try. Play the game for yourself. Then, following the instructions in the game, send it on to some friends who will score better. (Don't pass on a link to this blog page, it's important you pass on the link you see when you play the game, this way we can see how far it's spreading).

Good luck! Click here to play and then pass it on to some smart, persistent friends!

Sarah Palin vs Joe Biden: The Post-Election View

Dan Goldstein — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 21:53:08 +0000

You know the rules from the last posts. Here's how the Palin-Biden showdown looks now that the election is over:

Sarah Palin

Search Engine: Google.com

"sarah palin" AND "bad decision" -biden    20300
"sarah palin" AND "good decision" -biden    13700
Good-to-bad ratio    0.67

"bad decision" AND +palin   -biden    38800
"good decision" AND +palin -biden    26100
Good-to-bad ratio    0.67

"sarah palin" AND "bad choice" -biden    23600
"sarah palin" AND "good choice" -biden    71600
Good-to-bad ratio    3.03

"bad choice" AND +palin -biden    41700
"good choice" AND +palin -biden    121000
Good-to-bad ratio    2.90

Search Engine: Google blog search (blogsearch.google.com)

"sarah palin" AND "bad decision" -biden    420
"sarah palin" AND "good decision" -biden    262
Good-to-bad ratio    0.62

"bad decision" AND +palin   -biden    519
"good decision" AND +palin -biden    321
Good-to-bad ratio    0.62

"sarah palin" AND "bad choice" -biden    1026
"sarah palin" AND "good choice" -biden    2032
Good-to-bad ratio    1.98

"bad choice" AND +palin -biden    1552
"good choice" AND +palin -biden    3038
Good-to-bad ratio    1.96

Joe Biden

Search Engine: Google.com

"bad decision" AND "joe biden" AND -palin    4250
"good decision" AND "joe biden" AND -palin    2780
Good-to-bad ratio    0.65

"bad decision" AND +biden AND -palin    8120
"good decision" AND +biden AND -palin    5870
Good-to-bad ratio    0.72

"bad choice" AND "joe biden" AND -palin    6720
"good choice" AND "joe biden" AND -palin    20400
Good-to-bad ratio    3.04

"bad choice" AND "biden" AND -palin    12800
"good choice" AND "biden" AND -palin    40300
Good-to-bad ratio    3.15

Search Engine: Google blog search (blogsearch.google.com)

"bad decision" AND "joe biden" AND -palin    115
"good decision" AND "joe biden" AND -palin    103
Good-to-bad ratio    0.90

"bad decision" AND +biden AND -palin    191
"good decision" AND +biden AND -palin    150
Good-to-bad ratio    0.79

"bad choice" AND "joe biden" AND -palin    215
"good choice" AND "joe biden" AND -palin    406
Good-to-bad ratio    1.89

"bad choice" AND "biden" AND -palin    348
"good choice" AND "biden" AND -palin    1625
Good-to-bad ratio    4.67

Results

Competition I: "Good decision" to "bad decision" ratio

Palin's scores are: .67, .67, .62, .62 for an average of .65

Biden's scores are: .65, 72, .90, .79 for an average of .76

Competition II: "Good choice" to "bad choice" ratio

Palin's scores are: 3.03, 2.90, 1.98, 1.96 for an average of 2.47

Biden's scores are: 3.04, 3.15, 1.89, 4.67 for an average of 3.19

Biden edges out Palin in both competitions, which is the same as last time and the time before that.

Given that the election is over, I would have expected the loser's Good-to-bad ratio to fall sharply relative to the winner's, which doesn't seem to have happened. Biden's lead has been rather steady. There are still mostly old posts out there being picked up by search engines, so we'll try again in a few weeks. We have noticed that out on the wild Web there are many discussions like "was Palin a good choice?" but fewer similar discussions about Biden. These discussions, of course, elevate hits for for "Palin" and "good choice" even though they don't register a positive opinion.

How many rich and poor people are there in the USA?

Dan Goldstein — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 05:31:39 +0000

Think you know it all? A good deal of decision-making research centers around people's abilities to make accurate estimates and inferences.

Those who like to test their knowledge might be interested in this fun video game / Web experiment put together by myself and Lionel Page.

In it, you get to enter your beliefs about the inequality of income in the USA, and at the end, you can find out how accurate you were. Fun!

Give it your best shot at: http://www2.decisionresearchlab.com/db/hi/

How to increase voter turnout by asking questions

Dan Goldstein — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 19:54:39 +0000

Columbia University's Eric Johnson and Elke Weber have created Teachers4Turnout, a Web site / classroom activity to encourage voting among students.

Check it out at http://www.teachers4turnout.org Here's how they describe it:

The upcoming election is important to us, but even more important to our students. Decisions made by those officials who will be elected November 4th will affect the future of the country that our students will inherit. Our goal is to increase student participation in the electoral process. Studies show that we can increase voting substantially with a simple question: Merely asking students if they will be voting increases turnout, by getting their commitment to vote.
After you sign up, you will find a suggested script that is designed to encourage voting. This should take less than 5 minutes of class time. We will also send you no more than two reminder emails and ask you, after election day, how things went. That's all.
Please help spread the word by forwarding this message to colleagues who also teach voter-age populations. With your help, we can make Teachers4Turnout a national success, and help our students vote.

Those interested in the latest behavioral research on increasing voter turnout might wish to read Nudging turnout: Mere measurement and implementation planning of intentions to vote by the international team of Dan Goldstein (London), Kosuke Imai (Princeton), Anja Göritz (Würzburg), and the Peter Gollwitzer (NYU).

Sarah Palin vs Joe Biden: Round Two

Dan Goldstein — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:00:49 +0000

Last time, we looked at whether the Internet thought that Sarah Palin and Joe Biden were considered good or bad choices. This week, the completely unscientific and undoubtedly flawed investigation continues as we look at how things stand 25 days later.

(Disclaimer: This is just for fun. I'd have to think long and hard about how to do such a thing the proper way.)

Our basic approach is similar to that in the first round. We establish two baseline ratios, the "good decision" to "bad decision" ratio and the "good choice" to "bad choice" ratio, by searching for those phrases on Google and Google blog search. We find that the phrase "good decision" appears about 1.3 times more often than "bad decision" and "good choice" appears a stunning 7.3 times more often than "bad choice". It's a rather positive Internet out there.

Next we check to see how often Web pages and blog posts use the names of the VP candidates along with the phrases "good decision", "bad decision", "good choice" and "bad choice". To be a bit more careful than last time, we filter out results that mention the opposing candidate. So, for example, we'd count all the Web pages that say "Sarah Palin" and "good decision" but do not mention Joe Biden. We do this so that we can be a bit more confident about whom the post or page is about. Since I'm lazy, I'll just use Google.

Here are the results of the queries. Skip to the end for the summary stats.

Sarah Palin

Search Engine: Google.com

"sarah palin" AND "bad decision" -biden   7260
"sarah palin" AND "good decision" -biden   3960
Good-to-bad ratio   0.55

"bad decision" AND +palin   -biden   39900
"good decision" AND +palin  -biden   30000
Good-to-bad ratio   0.75

"sarah palin" AND "bad choice" -biden   13000
"sarah palin" AND "good choice" -biden   30200
Good-to-bad ratio   2.32

"bad choice" AND +palin  -biden   97200
"good choice" AND +palin  -biden   369000
Good-to-bad ratio   3.80

Search Engine: Google blog search (blogsearch.google.com)

"sarah palin" AND "bad decision" -biden   201
"sarah palin" AND "good decision" -biden   129
Good-to-bad ratio   0.64

"bad decision" AND +palin   -biden   1221
"good decision" AND +palin  -biden   371
Good-to-bad ratio   0.30

"sarah palin" AND "bad choice" -biden   224
"sarah palin" AND "good choice" -biden   1321
Good-to-bad ratio   5.90

"bad choice" AND +palin  -biden   2090
"good choice" AND +palin  -biden   4918
Good-to-bad ratio   2.35

Joe Biden

Search Engine: Google.com

"bad decision" AND "joe biden"  AND -palin    4110
"good decision" AND "joe biden"  AND -palin    586
Good-to-bad ratio    0.14

"bad decision" AND +biden AND -palin    4500
"good decision" AND +biden AND -palin    5690
Good-to-bad ratio    1.26

"bad choice" AND "joe biden"  AND -palin    11600
"good choice" AND "joe biden"  AND -palin    39600
Good-to-bad ratio    3.41

"bad choice" AND "biden"  AND -palin    13900
"good choice" AND "biden"  AND -palin    50800
Good-to-bad ratio    3.65

Search Engine: Google blog search (blogsearch.google.com)

"bad decision" AND "joe biden"  AND -palin    40
"good decision" AND "joe biden"  AND -palin    101
Good-to-bad ratio    2.53

"bad decision" AND +biden AND -palin    94
"good decision" AND +biden AND -palin    169
Good-to-bad ratio    1.80

"bad choice" AND "joe biden"  AND -palin    276
"good choice" AND "joe biden"  AND -palin    1278
Good-to-bad ratio    4.63

"bad choice" AND "biden"  AND -palin    406
"good choice" AND "biden"  AND -palin    2139
Good-to-bad ratio    5.27

Results

Competition I: "Good decision" to "bad decision" ratio

Palin's scores are: .55, .75, .64, .3 for an average of .56

Biden's scores are: .14, 1.26, 2.53, 1.8 for an average of 1.43

Competition II: "Good choice" to "bad choice" ratio

Palin's scores are: 2.32, 3.8, 5.9, 2.35 for an average of 3.59

Biden's scores are: 3.41, 3.65, 4.63, 5.27 for an average of 4.24

Biden edges out Palin in both competitions, which is the same result as last time.

It will be interesting to see how these figures will change as the election draws near. Also amusing will be the 20/20 hindsight that will emerge when the election is over.

Was choosing Sarah Palin a good decision or a bad decision?

Dan Goldstein — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 15:41:37 +0000

This week, a completely unscientific and undoubtedly flawed investigation of whether Sarah Palin was a good or bad pick for VP.

(Disclaimer: This is just for fun. I'd have to think long and hard about how to do such a thing the proper way.)

We should first check for a bias in our sources to find "good decision" more or less than often than "bad decision":

Search Engine: Google.com

"bad decision" = 1,450,000
"good decision" = 1,850,000
Good to bad ratio: 1.28

"bad choice" = 1,960,000
"good choice" = 12,700,000
Good to bad ratio: 6.48

Search Engine: Google blog search (blogsearch.google.com)

"bad decision" = 170,606
"good decision" = 232,560
Good to bad ratio: 1.36

"bad choice" = 232,637
"good choice" = 1,747,694
Good to bad ratio:7.51

Search Engine: Yahoo.com

"bad decision" = 3,920,000
"good decision" = 5,920,000
Good to bad ratio: 1.51

"bad choice" = 4,920,000
"good choice" = 34,500,000
Good to bad ratio: 7.01

Search Engine: Technorati.com

"bad decision" = 3,325
"good decision"= 4,680
Good to bad ratio=1.40

"bad choice" = 3,567
"good choice" = 19,466
Good to bad ratio: 5.46

So, on the wild, wild Web, there are 1.3-1.5 times more good decisions than bad ones. And, there are 5-8 times more good choices than bad ones. The good gets more hits than the bad, no question. What a positive world we live in.

Next we'll combine these basic terms with "Sarah Palin" and "Palin":

Search Engine: Google.com

"sarah palin" AND "bad decision" = 1,880
"sarah palin" AND "good decision" = 1,980
Good to bad ratio: 1.05

"bad decision" AND +palin    3,270
"good decision" AND +palin    3,340
Good to bad ratio:    1.02

"sarah palin" "bad choice" = 8,610
"sarah palin" "good choice" = 22,700
Good to bad ratio: 2.64

"bad choice" AND +palin    12,200
"good choice" AND +palin    35,200
Good to bad ratio:    2.89

Search Engine: Google blog search (blogsearch.google.com)

"sarah palin" AND "bad decision" = 48
"sarah palin" AND "good decision" = 47
Good to bad ratio: .98

"bad decision" AND +palin    76
"good decision" AND +palin    87
Good to bad ratio:    1.14

"sarah palin" "bad choice" = 365
"sarah palin" "good choice" = 507
Good to bad ratio: 1.39

"bad choice" AND +palin    428
"good choice" AND +palin    1261
Good to bad ratio:    2.95

Search Engine: Yahoo.com

"sarah palin" "bad decision" = 2,680
"sarah palin" "good decision" = 6460
Good to bad ratio:2.41

"bad decision" palin    13,200
"good decision" palin    17,000
Good to bad ratio:    1.29

"sarah palin" "bad choice" = 85,700
"sarah palin" "good choice" = 239,000
Good to bad ratio: 2.79

"bad choice" palin    111,000
"good choice" palin    354,000
Good to bad ratio:    3.19

Search Engine: Technorati.com

"sarah palin" "bad decision" = 9
"sarah palin" "good decision" =8
Good to bad ratio:.89

"bad decision" palin    26
"good decision" palin    19
Good to bad ratio:    0.73

"sarah palin" "bad choice" =48
"sarah palin" "good choice" =103
Good to bad ratio: 2.14

"bad choice" palin    113
"good choice" palin    246
Good to bad ratio:    2.18

In sum, for "decisions" the overall good-to-bad ratio is about 1.4, and Sarah Palin's ratios are 1.05, 1.02, .98, 1.14, 2.41, 1.29, .89 and .73.

For "choices" the overall good-to-bad ratio is about 6.6, and Sarah Palin's ratios are 2.64, 2.89, 1.39, 2.95, 2.79, 3.19, 2.14, and 2.18

Now let's do Joe Biden. I'll try "Joe Biden" and "Biden" and "Joseph Biden".

Search Engine: Google.com

"bad decision" AND "joe biden"    7990
"good decision" AND "joe biden"    8770
Good to bad ratio:    1.10

"bad decision" AND "biden"    10800
"good decision" AND "biden"    11900
Good to bad ratio:    1.10

"bad decision" AND "joseph biden"    829
"good decision" AND "joseph biden"    986
Good to bad ratio:    1.19

"bad choice" AND "joe biden"    26,000
"good choice" AND "joe biden"    73,200
Good to bad ratio:    2.82

"bad choice" AND "biden"    33200
"good choice" AND "biden"    207000
Good to bad ratio:    6.23

"bad choice" AND "joseph biden"    2,520
"good choice" AND "joseph biden"    11,200
Good to bad ratio:    4.44

Search Engine: Google blog search (blogsearch.google.com)

"bad decision" AND "joe biden"    26
"good decision" AND "joe biden"    58
Good to bad ratio:    2.23

"bad decision" AND "biden"    112
"good decision" AND "biden"    205
Good to bad ratio:    1.83

"bad decision" AND "joseph biden"    7
"good decision" AND "joseph biden"    19
Good to bad ratio:    2.71

"bad choice" AND "joe biden"    448
"good choice" AND "joe biden"    1,353
Good to bad ratio:    3.02

"bad choice" AND "biden"    593
"good choice" AND "biden"    3008
Good to bad ratio:    5.07

"bad choice" AND "joseph biden"    15
"good choice" AND "joseph biden"    221
Good to bad ratio:    14.73

Search Engine: Yahoo.com

"bad decision" "joe biden"    26,900
"good decision" "joe biden"    28,300
Good to bad ratio:    1.05

"bad decision" biden    111,000
"good decision" biden    107000
Good to bad ratio:    0.96

"bad decision" "joseph biden"   1550
"good decision" "joseph biden"   2050
Good to bad ratio:   1.32

"bad choice" "joe biden"    273,000
"good choice" "joe biden"    871,000
Good to bad ratio:    3.19

"bad choice" "biden"    358,000
"good choice" "biden"    1,640,000
Good to bad ratio:    4.58

"bad choice" "joseph biden"    8,760
"good choice" "joseph biden"    75,100
Good to bad ratio:    8.57

Search Engine: Technorati.com

"bad decision" "joe biden"    9
"good decision" "joe biden"    19
Good to bad ratio:    2.11

"bad decision" biden    19
"good decision" biden    28
Good to bad ratio:    1.47

"bad decision" "joseph biden"    0
"good decision" "joseph biden"    1
Good to bad ratio:    Can't be computed!

"bad choice" "joe biden"    58
"good choice" "joe biden"    154
Good to bad ratio:    2.66

"bad choice" "biden"    117
"good choice" "biden"    328
Good to bad ratio:    2.80

"bad choice" "joseph biden"    4
"good choice" "joseph biden"    13
Good to bad ratio:    3.25

In sum, for "decisions" the overall good-to-bad ratio is about 1.4, and Biden's ratios are:1.1, 1.1, 1.19, 2.23, 1.83, 2.71, 1.05, .96, 1.32, 2.11 and 1.47

For "choices" the overall good-to-bad ratio is about 6.6, and Biden's ratios are: 2.82, 6.23, 4.44, 3.02, 5.07, 14.73, 3.19, 4.58, 8.57, 2.66, 2.80 and 3.25

Overall, for "decisions" Palin's median Good-to-bad ratio is 1 to Biden's 1.3.

For "choices" it's Palin's 2.7 to Biden's 3.8.

Who knows what to make of this? One clear thing is that after the election, it will be "obvious" to everyone whether Palin or Biden was a good choice.

(Oops, I just said "good choice" ... no wonder the search engine stats are skewed!)

Catch a thief with pencil and ruler

Dan Goldstein — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 10:47:34 +0000

When a number of crimes, for instance burglaries, can be linked to the same offender, police often plot the locations on a map. The art of finding the location of the criminal's home based on the crime sites is a key objective in what is known as geographical profiling.

Snook, Zito, Bennell and Taylor (2005) ran a competition between 11 techniques for locating offender residences. All techniques took as input the x-y coordinates of crimes (all committed by the same crook) on a map and made predictions of the criminal's home location. There are many ways to turn these sets of coordinates into a point prediction. One stands out as exceptionally simple, so much so that it can be carried out with a pencil and ruler:

Center-of-the-circle heuristic: Predict that the offender lives at the mid-point of the line connecting the two farthest apart crime locations.

The figure up top shows the heuristic applied to a set of crime locations. Note that the midpoint is the center of the smallest circle encompassing all the crimes. Ten other methods for profiling were tested, including other "spatial distribution strategies" such as finding the centroid, harmonic mean, geometric mean, or point of minimum distance. Also investigated were computationally intensive "probability distance strategies" that involve fitting probability distributions such as the negative exponential, normal and lognormal and zooming in on maximally likely cells.

The 11 methods were applied to the crime locations of 16 UK residential burglars who had committed at least 10 crimes. Interestingly, all the strategies were run on a computer except for the center-of-the-circle heuristic, which was applied manually. We don't know if that is because the crime-fighting software used is not clued into the power of the simple heuristic.

As shown below, in the aggregate analysis, the center-of-the-circle heuristic made the most accurate forecasts of where the criminals lived. In another study (Snook, Taylor and Bennell, 2004), laypeople who were trained with heuristic methods were as accurate at predicting home locations as a computerized geographic profiling system.

My point is not that highfalutin' statistics are bad. In fact, the more complex systems provide information that the "x-marks-the-spot" systems cannot provide, such as probable search areas. I merely wish to observe that it is sometimes difficult to impossible to beat simple strategies at forecasting.

References:
Snook, Brent, Michele Zito, Craig, Bennell, Paul J. Taylor. (2005). On the complexity and accuracy of geographic profiling strategies. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 21(1), 1-26.

Snook, Brent, Paul J. Taylor & Craig Bennell (2004). Geographic profiling: The fast, frugal, and accurate way. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 18, 105-121.

Notes:
This is extracted from an in-progress paper of mine, watch this space for the final version.
Vigilanteism is not a good idea.
Yes, that is a rotated map of Rhode Island.

Put first things first with the help of software

Dan Goldstein — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:34:15 +0000

Ever find yourself frittering away the day responding to email after email? Ever think that if you'd just spent 8 hours working on that project, you'd be done and still have time to answer those emails in front of the TV later that night? Sure, we all have.

Why we simply don't do the hard stuff first is a fascinating question in its own right. I mean, if we're going to be happier at the end of the day having ignored the emails, why don't we learn to ignore them? It's too much to get into here, but see the psychological literature on intertemporal choice and previous posts and the Don't Delay blog if this interests you.

The good news is that the always-innovating Google is here to help with their experimental "Take a Break" feature in Gmail. When clicked, it prevents you from checking your email for 15 minutes, telling you do something more productive instead.

To use it, you'll need to manually activate "Gmail Labs" inside Gmail. See the Gmail blog or if you're impatient, try Settings -> Labs from Gmail. Right now, it's only enabled in the US and UK.

Other tools to try if you can't get down to work at work:

* Temptation Blocker: a Windows program to prevent you from using any other program (especially good to prevent you from opening your Email client or Web browser).
http://sourceforge.net/projects/temptblocker/

* Time Tracker: An extension to the FireFox browser that tracks how much time you waste on various sites.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1887