The lottery mentality

There are so many ethical considerations when running experiments on human beings. All for good measure, of course. But like in every other scenario, there is a loophole. You are free to run experiments on yourself and hopefully you run the ones that leave you unscathed. I have been running some on myself and I have found some interesting things that apply to me in particular and may as well apply to others.

 The lottery syndrome

This one is so good I had to name it and it has been almost singularly responsible for the gap between what I wanted to get done and what I actually got done over the years. The lottery syndrome is the mindset that you will do things in large chunks and get a lot done in a single block of time. You are going to finish it off in one go. Commonly experienced as “I’ll read this amazing book on a beautiful Sunday afternoon” or “I’ll build a prototype over the