Scientific Definition
People, tasks, and inputs that quietly drain disproportionate energy relative to value returned.
Plain-English Definition
People, tasks, and inputs that quietly drain disproportionate energy relative to value returned.
Feynman Explanation
The cost shows up in your evenings, not on the invoice.
Core Principle
People, tasks, and inputs that quietly drain disproportionate energy relative to value returned.
Mechanisms
Pending editorial review.
People, tasks, and inputs that quietly drain disproportionate energy relative to value returned.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Engagement, retention, and execution quality.
Inputs (Triggers)
Pending editorial review.
Outputs (Behaviors)
Pending editorial review.
Behavioral Signature
The cost shows up in your evenings, not on the invoice.
Examples
- Repeat low-trust clients, doom-scroll feeds, recurring 'sync' meetings with no decision.
- Engagement, retention, and execution quality.
Pending editorial review.
Famous Experiments
Pending editorial review.
Design Principles
- Track energy after each recurring commitment for two weeks; cut the bottom quartile.
Measurement Approaches
Pending editorial review.
Evidence
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
The Perverse Incentive Lens™
How this behavior is exploited — and how to redesign around it.
- Track energy after each recurring commitment for two weeks; cut the bottom quartile.
Pending editorial review.
Pending editorial review.
Interactive Mini Network
Click any neighbor to re-center the graph and follow the threads of connection.
Knowledge Graph Neighbors
Auto-linked to the rest of the Human Behavior Taxonomy by family, domain, dimension, and shared keywords.
The mind can be socially influenced toward conclusions that bypass scrutiny.
The deepest level of listening — where new possibility emerges that neither party brought into the room.
The minimum energy needed to start a reaction; same idea for starting habits or initiatives.
Time is fixed; energy is not. Manage the renewable.
The brain minimizes effort by default — most cognition is on cruise control.
Rick Hanson: 'Velcro for negative, Teflon for positive.' The brain encodes threats faster and stickier than rewards.
New neurons are formed in the adult brain, especially the hippocampus.
Mental rehearsal pattern: see yourself doing the new behavior, refine, step in, run it kinesthetically until it's natural.
A group decides on a course of action that nobody actually wants, because everyone assumes others prefer it.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
We attribute our own actions to situations but others' actions to their character.
We favor people who are similar to us or who like us.