Preoccupation with past failure or future uncertainty is claimed to be the principal obstacle to effective action now.
The genuine finding nearby is that rumination, meaning repetitive unproductive focus on distress, predicts worse outcomes, while planning and anticipatory problem-solving predict better ones. Both look like thinking about other times. Advice to stay in the present treats them as one thing.
In practice
- A team that stops relitigating a past failure moves faster; one that stops examining it repeats it.
- A person told not to dwell on the future has been told not to plan.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation offered is that attention spent on past failure or future uncertainty is unavailable for present action. The researched distinction is between rumination, which is repetitive and unproductive, and planning, which is neither.
- In its favour
- Rumination does predict impairment and worse outcomes, so the advice is sound for that half.
- Against it
- Anticipatory problem-solving and reflection on past error are both productive, and the maxim does not distinguish them from rumination, so followed literally it removes useful thinking along with the harmful kind.
- Standing
- Testimonial evidence selected on success, with no comparison group. Overlaps with research on rumination, which does predict impairment, and with anticipatory planning, which does not. The maxim does not distinguish them.
- Subject
- Creativity & Work
- Essay
- The success literature and its sceptics