Quick Spoon: The path of least resistance

What's driving the choices we make at work?

In my conversation with Dr Ryan Kemp, we were talking about addiction and how a person's experience of time can become compressed around the immediate.

Ryan described part of his therapeutic role as helping people with addictions to expand that time horizon — to consider not just the immediate consequences of their actions, but the medium- and longer-term implications.

That got me thinking about something I see quite often in my own work: the path of least resistance.

We avoid the difficult conversation.

We put off the thing we know we need to do.

We go for the quick win.

We choose what's going to make today a little easier.

And sometimes that's absolutely fine.

But sometimes the short-term gain comes at the expense of something that matters more in the longer term.

So here's your Quick Spoon:

Am I choosing this because it's what matters, or because it's the easiest option right now?