The background music used on this episode is Antonio Vivaldi’s Sonata 5 Largo (I & III) performed by the Telemann Trio and is used courtesy of Musopen (www.musopen.org).

Karel gives a few examples of the power of the mind and the ways in which it can take control without our knowledge. He talks about the placebo effect in medical research, the Loftus’s research into reconstructed memories, Dawkins’s work on the difficulty of changing religious beliefs, and Gladwell’s summary of work on the confirmation bias in auditions (click on the links in the previous paragraph to listen to audio segments giving details on each of these). Karel then gives examples of several other biases including the bandwagon effect, base rate fallacy, the illusion of control bias, gamblers fallacy, the planning fallacy, the halo effect, in-group bias, and out-group homogeneity bias, groupthink, and cognitive dissonance. Have a look at a longer list of biases on Wikipedia.

Karel discusses taking control of your time, yearly and weekly time scales, prioritizing the roles you play, and then has specific advice on new habits to consider for use on the job including default meeting length, staying focussed during meetings, deciding whether a meeting, a phone call, an e-mail, or an IM chat is most appropriate and efficient. His advice for the rest of your life includes multitasking with an iPod, using audible.com to get your reading material, listening to podcasts, switching phone to voicemail and text messaging, subcontracting work at home, assigning tasks to kids and making their allowance contingent on the work, scheduling time for each family member, and also to watch out for overscheduling activities at home and leaving some time for spontaneous activities.