In the "Blink" of an eye

Jim Gaffigan has a joke about the person who sees a movie 10 years after it's release and then wants to talk about it. Nobody wants to talk about it then.

Well that's me and this book. Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (love his doo) was only published 2 years ago, but it is not quite on the "top sellers" list for today. In fact, I got it along with Velvet Elvis and Traveling Mercies on the 3 for 2 rack at Borders. But it was so worth the read. The illustrative material alone was worth it. Remember all that stuff I was citing about prejudice against short people? That's from Blink.

The basic premise behind Blink is that we have the ability to make good decisions with far less information than we think. Some call it "thin slicing." Our brains are wired in such a way to cut through all the clutter when making a decision and zero in on what's most important. What stands in the way of that is our biases, prejudices and stress. But in any field, you can be trained and gain experience that will help you make great decisions even though some would call them "snap decisions." Studies have shown that a decision made quicker with less information can be better than one delayed with more information.

Some keys:
1. Seek better understanding versus more information. This is huge in an information overload age. It also helps me understand why some people I respect are totally disconnected from culture, yet they are some of the wisest people I know.
2. Recognize your own prejudices and do what you can to eliminate them. We all have them. This has to do with everything from skin color to the way people dress and they do affect the decisions we make.
3. Recognize your stress threshold. An interesting section of the book talked about how when our heart rate is within a certain range we can make really good decisions quickly (without all the information). But once it rises above that level we go off the edge, so to speak and don't really think straight.

Blink was so worth the time I will be referring back to it.