Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Do the Math

1. Set a timer for one minute.
2. Count how many thoughts you have in that minute.
3. Do the math: How many thoughts occupy your day?

4 comments:

  1. I did 3 sets of timings: one with my eyes closed, one with my eyes open, and one walking around - yes, with my eyes open! All were at my home, which is where I would usually be for most of my day. My average was 12 thoughts per minute, with vary little variance between the samples, which was not what I expected. I assumed walking around with my eyes open would result in a higher number of thoughts than sitting quietly with my eyes closed. Strange but true.

    So, 12 thoughts per minute x60 minutes per hour x24 hours per day = 17,280 thoughts.

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  2. 9 thoughts in a minute at work in an empty office. 12,960 thoughts per day.

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  3. Most of those thoughts had to do with counting thoughts, though ;) thus the cognitive bias I spoke of — it has to do with keeping track of the things you are counting, and the occasional noise in the distance. I think if I didn't have to count, it might be something like 5.

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