The Sunk Cost Fallacy & Attention Span Attrition | Weekbook #32

Have you ever kept going with something, even when you know you shouldn’t?

Peter Lawson
August 6th, 2023

Have you ever kept going with something, even when you know you shouldn’t?

You convince yourself that you’ve spent too much money or invested too much time. That giving up now would be a waste.

This is called the sunk cost fallacy.

It is the inability to abandon a current course of action, even when it is in your best interest to do so.

A common example is careers.

How often has your co-worker told you their dream is to do something different?

But rather than act, they stay the course. They’d rather continue for the next 20 years, all because of the time they’ve already invested.

This is nonsense.

Do not fear the sunk costs. Fear the consequences of not accepting them.

Attention is the hottest commodity on the planet, but it has decreased by 25% in the last 15 years.

In fact, the average human attention span is now just 8.25 seconds.

That’s less than a goldfish.

But it isn’t surprising when the next best video, tweet* or date is a single swipe away.

It also isn’t a bad thing.

Whilst many will argue that this is a massive problem for productivity, I would argue the opposite.

With the competition for attention being so fierce, it naturally drives improvement and innovation.

It shifts the focus from input to output, particularly in the work environment.

I believe that it can be a driver for change.

*sorry, ‘x’

A collection of my favourite articles, Twitter threads and newsletters from this week, annotated with my highlights and thoughts.

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"Sometimes we have to go back down the mountain to find the path to the top."

Naval Ravikant

Thumbnail credit: Markus Spiske on Unsplash