Episode 73 - QUICK & EASY Projects vs. SLOW Masterpieces - Which are YOU & WHY? (w/ Dr. Brad Appelhans)
Woodworking is BULLSHIT!Show Notes
Do you gravitate towards the quick and easy weekend project or the long haul masterpiece? The answer likely depends on your brain chemistry, your work/life schedule and availability, and your innate ability to tolerate delayed gratification.
In this episode, our next installment of The Psychology Series, we tackle this FASCINATING Question with the help of Dr. Brad Appelhans, a PhD psychologist and professor at Rush University Medical Center who has spent his career studying immediate vs. delayed gratification, and by the way, IS ALSO A WOODWORKER. Together we dig into whether our brains prefer the small reward now over the bigger one later, and what that means for all of us in our artistic journey.
In this episode:
* Brad's "slow vending machine" experiment, and why a 25 second delay is all it takes to change a not-so-good choice * The famous marshmallow test of immediate vs. delayed gratification * Paul's "mini boss" method for surviving 300-hour+ projects * The hot-cold empathy gap: why your future self might regret all those cutting boards * "Failure to launch": why new woodworkers (even surgeons) give up quickly * Brad's strategies for playing the long game: commitment, shrinking the time horizon, choice bundling, and episodic future thinking * A lightning round that gets….. Well, let's say "revealing"
To watch the YOUTUBE VIDEO of this episode and the unfiltered AFTERSHOW, subscribe to our Patreon: http://patreon.com/user?u=91688467 [http://patreon.com/user?u=91688467]
More from Woodworking is BULLSHIT!
Why spend time examining—or even physically making—"BAD ART"? Is there something to be learned by making BAD ART?
The things we make are not simply objects, but symbols of who WE ARE and WHAT WE OBSERVE in life. This week we sit down with our first ceramicist guest ever, Jordan Koons — potter and educator, to figure out what the things we make are trying to tell us about life and ourselves.
FACT -> Marketing is CRITICALLY IMPORTANT to sell the things we make. However, marketing often comes with an "ick factor" for many of us, as we are exposed to HUNDREDS of advertisements PER DAY, many of which are dishonest and misleading, with the products prioritizing convenience and profits over the environment.
How can we be creative when we don't know what the final goal looks like? This is OFTEN the case when we work in teams on collaborate projects, be it at work or in craft. How do we know if what we've produced is good enough? Erik and our esteemed guest, FARMER NICK (a wonderful landscape architect, environmentalist, farmer, husband, and all around beautiful human) talk about how they had to be creative on demand in their netflix show while not knowing exactly how thing would turn out in the end. I think this situation likely applies to ALL OF US in various situations in our life.
We've all been there: Bought the tool, watched the videos, bookmarked the plans. Organized the shop one more time. And somehow the actual PROJECT never happens.