Scarcity - Why too little can become too much?
We all desire change in one or other other areas of life, but human being success rate accomplish desiring change is quite poor? What is the root cause for this?
There are many ways from lack of motivation, will power, tools, techniques. But in this article, I like to share a new way to look at it from the principle of scarcity!
I am sure, by end of article, you get to understand that many change we are seeking are not being accomplished because of not lack of motivation, will power, tools, techniques but it is due to much more fundamental of how our mind works when faced with scarcity!
So, what does scarcity means and what is scarcity princile?
In short it is,
The lesser we have something the more we want it!
This seems quite simple. We have all been exploited of this by businesses and marketing using this principle by offering last minute sales, limited numbers, limited stock promotions and creating sense of scarcity feeling and an urge to buy!
But this article is not only about scarcity at just economic level, but to see how scarcity is present in all walks of life and how it is critical to understand for any long lasting behaviour change and build habits!
And scarcity when understood also explains some of the common observations such as why overweight can't stop eating, busy executives can't stop taking on more projects even at the cost of mental stress , or why insomniac's can't sleep or poor people continue to take more debt and find difficult to save and many others..
The vicious cycle of scarcity trap
To understand what scarcity means, here are couple of cases.
A new parent facing scarcity of time. A new born child at home means, it needs constant attention. Though the time to attend to the child is short, the nature of demand can come at any time of the day and intensity of each demand also differs from going for a short walk to diaper change, giving shower, to innumerable chores. This unpredictable but certain demands of time makes any parent feel the scarcity of time!
In a similar a way, a manager at office can find himself caught with meetings, requests from clients, team members 1-1's, management presentations and other urgent tasks that makes one feel time scarcity.
Or take the case of business owner who is finding his income is unable to meet his his business expenses and is resorting to short term borrowing to meet immediate needs of capital. Here he feels money scarcity.
Or an overweight who wants to go on diet. Now as he is forced to diet under certain calories limits, and finds always scarcity of his favourite meals.
Though all the challenges look different set of problems, the underlying common theme can be looked as they are caught in scarcity trap!
When one stuck is scarcity trap, what happens is parent who has to give attention to his new born, gives up taking care of his own well being, unable to spend time on his health and sleep affecting his stress levels.
Similarly business owner who is financially strapped, generally end up take on high-interest loans to cover immediate expenses. These loans increase the future financial burden, perpetuating a cycle of scarcity and stress.
Or the manager, in trying to meet immediate deadlines, sacrifices long-term projects and personal well-being and often it leads to burnout and diminished productivity in the long run.
Why we call this as trap is because, feeling of scarcity affects our behaviours and the scarcity mindset creates a vicious cycle of being stuck meeting immediate needs.
The Cognitive Impact of Scarcity
In the book Scarcity, by Mullainathan and Shafir say, Scarcity is not just a physical reality but a powerful psychological force. As per studies it is seen, when we experience scarcity, whether of time, money, or other resources, our cognitive bandwidth is significantly affected.
Imagine our mind as a computer. Scarcity acts like a large demanding program running in the background, slowing down other processes and compromising the system’s overall performance.
This condition makes our available resources to narrowly focus on immediate tasks or it is called "Tunnelling Effect".
Our brain primary purpose is to conserve energy and when the resources are scarce, the mind tend to focus obsessively on immediate deficits.
This narrowed focus can be beneficial in the short term, helping meet pressing demands. That is why when deadlines exists we end up completing tasks and deadlines are creating scarcity and makes us focus.
But behaving in this scarcity trip also comes at a cost. It leaves less mental space for important activities that are more strategic in nature.
Another challenge when pressed with scarcity is, it captures our attention. Say if you’re supposed to make important client presentation tomorrow and you had decided to spend next few hours on the same, but immediately you realized you had also committed to spend time on a family event.
In this case, though you decide to spend time with family, in the back of mind you you start feeling less and less time to prepare for presentation. The scarcity of the time captures your attention away from family!
I had faced this many times and my daughter could easily spot this and usually said, Papa, you are not here! Looks like your mind is in office!
As you see, scarcity works on both ways.
It helps focus on immediate tasks but at the same time by captures our attention to only immediate tasks, we leave with less mental space to focus on long term, important tasks such spending time with family, planning, investing on health etc.
This nature of being stuck serving immediate needs is what ultimately creates negative effects!
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Breaking Free from the Scarcity Trap
One of the most critical steps in addressing time, money or any other scarcity is to break free from the "scarcity trap."
This trap occurs when the immediate need to address urgent tasks perpetuates a cycle of rushed decisions and stress, ultimately consuming more time in the future.
For example, a manager handling every minor issue personally might solve problems quickly in the short term but prevents executives from focusing on strategic leadership and development.
A business owner trying to focus only immediate expenses and meeting urgent needs might run the business but cannot focus on the long term marketing, building systems that can help grow business. To escape this trap, one of the most important aspect is to build slack.
Slack is what a rich person has to spend on his needs vs poor person who lacks enough to meet needs!
Slack is best explained with this metaphor of packing for travel that is again given in book Scarcity.
Let me give my family example. When ever we do family trips, the way I pack and my wife does is quite opposite.
Generally I take a big suitcase and put all my stuff in that. Because I have large suitcase and enough space, for me packing gets over in short time and I usually will have suffiecient space left in my suitcase also to add any more stuffs.
My wife on the other hand does opposite. She likes to carry small suitcase inspite she has more cloths to carry. Now because of less space, she spend more time to fit everything in that suitcase and finds many times difficult to fit all things. Even in the trips she spends significant time managing here packing.
Recently our family did a trip to Andamans. During this trip I said to my wife, she better carry bigger suitcase. Initially she resisted but then agreed. To her surprise she found packing was no more headache during this whole trip and she felt she had more time:)
What happened here, is the slack she lacked for packing created scarcity of space she experienced in every trip.
This metaphor can be extended to other areas.
If if you are stuck with time, money or any other scarcity, the key is build a slack.
We have time suitcase that must fit our work, family, leisure, and family time. We have a money suitcase into which we must fit our housing, clothing, and other expenses. Or health focused calorie suitcase that must fit in all our meals!
Leveraging Scarcity for Driving Change
Again as said Scarcity is double edged sword.
When our mind stuck in scarcity trap, it forces us to focus our attention on most urgent tasks only! But continuing to focus on urgent tasks doesn't help to get out of scarcity but further go deep in to scarcity.
When we seek long term changes such saving money, freeing up time, we got to combat the negative effects of scarcity. And for this it is critical to learn to manage our cognitive bandwidth more effectively. The best way to achieve this by creating enough slack.
This means recognizing the difference between urgent and important tasks. Urgent tasks demand immediate attention, while important tasks contribute to long-term goals and overall well-being. This can involve setting boundaries, delegating tasks, and sometimes, saying no.
It also means creating buffers—financial savings, extra time in your schedule, and mental space for reflection—to cushion against the inevitable ebbs and flows of life.
Some of the methods to do when faced with time scarcity is by practicing,
Again, scarcity is not always bad thing. Inducing scarcity actually helps many times.
The pressure of limited resources can foster creativity and innovation. When there is too much slack or abundance, one may not be as motivated to think outside the box or seek more efficient solutions.
Scarcity forces us to be more resourceful, to find new ways of doing things, and to prioritize what truly matters. This is why startups that operate with limited funds and constraints are more agile and innovative.
Embracing Scarcity with Mindfulness
The insights from?Scarcity?by Sendhil Mullainathan and Eldar Shafir offer a profound understanding of how limited resources shape our lives and decisions.
In my own health and time, I have recognized the cognitive impact of scarcity, avoiding the scarcity trap, is the way best to bring change.
Again depending on the scarcity, there are innovative ways can be arrived. Firstly to know that change we desire is not happening because we are stuck in scarcity mindset is critical.
This reflection helps to build slack, release cognitive bandwidth and develop solutions that helps release the mental space and focus on important tasks.
It is like the shutting off the big background program that is running in background of computer and hogging the CPU power and slowing down everything!
That is it for this edition and if you found this article interesting do share to others who may benefit and also leave a comment for me!
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