59 seconds by Richard Wiseman

Effective change does not have to be time-consuming. It can take less than a minute and is often simply a question of knowing exactly where to tap.

1. Happiness
Keep the perfect diary.
Buy experiences, not goods.
Sit up.

2. Persuasion
The Franklin Effect: People like you more when they do a (SMALL) favor for you.
The Pratfall effect: The occasional slipup can enhance your likeability when you are in danger of being seen as too perfect.
Gossip: Whatever traits you assign to others are likely to come home to roost, being viewed as part of your own personality.

If  you want to up the chances of a lost wallet being returned, truck in a photograph of the cutest, happiest baby you can find and make sure that it is prominently displayed.

3. Motivation
Lien Pham and Shelley Taylor: The daydreaming exercise had significant impact on the students' behavior, causing them to study less and make lower grades on the exam.
Gabriel Oettingen and Thomas Wadden:  those with more positive fantasies had lost on average twenty-six ponds less than those with negative fantasies.

You need to take actions! Fantasizing about your perfect world may make you feel better, but it is unlikely to help you transform your dreams into reality. It is important to visualize, but it is no less important to take actions!

Hence, visualize yourself doing, not achieving. Visualize yourself taking the practical steps needed to achieve your goals.Also, visualize yourself as others see you.

Tennis players and golfers benefit far more from imagining themselves training than winning.

Lisa Libby: they type of "behavioral commitments" involved in such visualization exercises can be made even more effective by seeing yourself as others see you.

Permanent and positive changes are all about having the perfect plan, knowing how to beat procrastination, and employing a rather strange form of doublethink (fantasy-reality thinking).

1. Make a step-by-step plan
Successful people break their overall goal into a series of sub-goals and thereby created a step-by-step process that helped remove the fear and hesitation often associated with trying to achieve a major life change. These plans were especially powerful when the sub-goals were concrete, measurable, and time-based
SMART: specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, time-based.
2. Think about the good things that will happen if I achieve my goal
remind yourself frequently of the benefits accosicated with achieving the goals. Have an objectice checklist of how life would be better once the goals are achieved.
3. Reward for making progress toward the goal
Some small reward attached to the sub-goals.
4. Record my progress (in a journal or on a chart)
Make the plans, progress, benefits, and rewards as concrete as possible by expressing them in writing. The act of writing, typing, or drawing significantly boost the chances of success.



Using the Zeigarnik effect to solve the problem of procrastination.
"Just a few minutes" rule is a highly effective way of beating procratination and could help people finish the most arduous of tasks.



Consider your legacy and write your own eulogy. This helps to identify long-term goals and assess the degree to which you are progressing toward making those goals a reality.


Liars tend to lack detail, use more "ums" and "ahs" and avoid self-references ("me,""mine,""I"), use uncontracted form (do not instead of don't).
People are about 20 percent less likely to lie in an email than in a telephone call.