It’s surprisingly hard to find any research on the psychology of shortcuts. That might be because it’s not a thing. But as I often find myself trying to take shortcuts, and just as often find that they’re not shortcuts at all, it made me wonder: what is going on here?
For example, the other day I was tinkering in the garage and needed a tool that I had left in my studio, which was about 15 steps and two door-opens away. I needed to bend a small piece of wire, and this required my pliers. Now, I didn’t think this out in so many words, but in that moment, I didn’t want to have to go all the way to the studio (15 steps and two door-opens away) to get the tool. There was an irrational force inside of me that compelled me to stay put, in the garage, and make do with whatever I could find within arm’s reach. I simply couldn’t will myself to make the trip to get the right tool, so instead, I started scanning for anything that might approximately sub in for it.
I grabbed a flat-head screwdriver. My idea was to place one end of the wire against a hard surface and then use the flat of the screwdriver as a sort of wedge to forge the bend where I wanted it. For the hard surface, I chose the handle of my fancy electric lawn mower, which was only 1 step away, firm enough to do the job, and at such a height that I would not have to bend down. (A better surface would have been the concrete floor, but that would have required squatting).
I know: a boring, tedious detail that I wouldn’t have had to figure out how to describe to you had I just walked 15 steps and opened two doors to get the pliers. And after that, you might still not understand what I mean. Meanwhile, we all know how pliers work, and I would have just been able to say, “I used the pliers to bend the wire”— you would have completely understood what happened. The stupidity of my “shortcut” is illustrated by the complexity involved in explaining it.
Do you know what the real short cut would have been? Using the pliers in the first place. Even when you account for the 15 steps and two door opens (actually, 30 steps and four door opens for the round-trip, but still … ), it would have saved me time — and moreover, it would have done a better job.
Against my own reasoning, I choose to spend more time to use the wrong tool to do a worse job. But my intuition, if you want to call it that, somehow calculated this to be the best approach. And that is why I was wondering if there has been any research — or anyone at all — looking into why we try to take shortcuts when they’re not shortcuts at all.
In a quick search for a podcast on the topic, of course, I found lots of episodes with “there are no shortcuts” somewhere in the title. This is run-of-the-mill motivation wisdom offered to anyone looking to achieve great things, like building a successful business or career, or building the perfect beach body in time for summer. In the same search, I came upon a somewhat opposite idea in podcasters offering lists of shortcuts and hacks to achieve their goals faster. Whether it’s getting a menial task like bending wire or more a more significant goal (like growing your social media following), we all want to know how we can get there faster and with less effort.
So how did my wire bending task go? It got bent, but not quite in the right way. In the process, I gouged the handle of my fancy lawnmower with the poky end of the wire. I ended up having to get the pliers and do it the right way anyway.
The lesson here is obvious — don’t take stupid shortcuts that aren’t shortcuts at all. We all know that time and effort is required when we really want something. But what I’m looking for is a deeper insight into why we make bad decisions like this in the first place. Why didn’t I want to go and get the pliers, and what was I in a hurry to do next that I couldn’t stand the thought of a few extra seconds (and steps and doors) to do it the right way? Why do we rush tasks if ultimately we don’t see a reward in time savings or in the results?
While my wire bending story is kind of silly, this tendency to seek out shortcuts — even at great cost and with little or no reward — can end up hurting us. It can hurt our bottom line, it can cut into our self-confidence and self-worth, and it sometimes it can get us badly hurt. As a creative professional, my shortcut-seeking behaviour has cost me many hours and has been the source of much frustration—for both me and those around me!
As trite as it sounds, it’s almost always true: there are no shortcuts. This is as true in business as it is on the bench press. There’s only better and worse ways to do things. Usually, the better way will take longer than you’d like. And if there’s a shorter way to do the same thing to get the best result, then that is not a shortcut, but the best way. The paradox is that what might make us faster at what we do takes time to master, and sometimes, it takes trying a few not-so-short shortcuts to help us learn this lesson.
It is not always about the results,but on what you don’t want to do. A student will spend hours arguing about a grade and retaking a course - rather than the taking time to study. Didn’t get everything you needed at the store, you didn’t want to go to the store in the first place so you didn’t make a list. You either didn’t want to bend the wire or you didn’t want to be working on the project that bending the wire took you away from. Sometimes we don’t want to do anything, and wasting time is the next best thing.
Of course not all shortcuts turn out to be shortcuts in the end, but in general the tendency of humans to take the most efficient route has spared us probably tons of time (: Try looking for "heuristics" aka mental shortcuts if you'd like to learn more about the psychology of shortcuts, or also see for example the book of Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow. It's a bit different than what you described but might still be interesting (: