Vitruvian Man

The Mind Box

What is the "Mind Box"?

To use an analogy, imagine you have twenty things in your "mind box". When you see something, or think about something, you're grabbing the box and opening it up to look at your notes. But you open the box, and on the top are a bunch of books. That is, you open the box, look at the notes on the top, and make a decision. If you have more time, or the decision is of more importance, you may dig deeper into the box.

What you find first in the "mind box" is going to form your first judgment of the product's evaluation. If you have a few things to look at before making a decision, it will be quick and painless. But the greater the stakes, the more hinderance the "mind box" causes because it's keeping things buried, things you know you'll need but must work to get.

So what do we keep in the Mind Box? ALL SORTS of STUFF!!! We store the mental equivalent of grandma's lamp, boss' voice, favourite book, and everything else. Let's say you have an old classical lamp on the top that was a gift from your grandma. But on the bottom, you have other more technologically advanced things like a computer mouse or something or elegant backlit keyboard.

So what do most people do when making decisions? There's typically 3 options for any evaluation process.

1) Open the Mind Box and take a quick glance, and make a quick decision.
2) Open the Mind Box and take a deep look, often taking longer to go through things.
3) Open the Mind Box, take a look, and close it without making a decision. You'll come back to it...
4) this one is optional... shake the "mind box" without opening, listen to the sound it makes, and use that to evaluate a product... not recommended. Haha

KEYWORDS:  (3) box open (2) box close (5) things people (2) thing (23) people (19) understand (15) limitations (2) bookshelf (6) reflection (2) strangers (2) keyboard (2) capacity (2) judgment (3) glimpse (2) interested (5) thought (2) books (10) factor (2) stuff (5) bottom (2) option (2)