[Book Sip] "91.4% of Worries Never Actually Happened"

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This is the follow-up work by the author of the global bestseller "Jikan Chizu" (Time Map), which attracted one million readers worldwide. Based on extensive academic papers and 30 years of coaching 740,000 people, it introduces effective time management methods. The author points out that the human brain cannot distinguish between urgent and important tasks. He advises that prioritizing importance can significantly reduce wasted time throughout one’s life.

In 1918, Charles R. Schwab, then the steel magnate of the United States, received the following advice from productivity consultant Ivy Lee:

1. At the end of each day, write down the six most important tasks to accomplish the next day.
2. Prioritize the six tasks.
3. Upon arriving at work the next day, focus solely on the top priority task. Do not touch other tasks until it is completed.
4. Work through the tasks in order of priority, and carry over unfinished tasks to the next day’s list.

It’s much simpler than you might think. Schwab faithfully implemented this, and his company grew rapidly. Three months later, Schwab paid Lee $25,000 (equivalent to about 600 million won in 2025 value). Focusing on what is most important to your purpose holds this kind of value. This principle has been regarded as the royal road to time management for over a century and continues to be passed down.

Participants wrote down their worries according to a set signal for 10 days. On average, each person recorded 34.3 worries, and some recorded over 100. This means they were troubled by anxious thoughts at least three times a day. Afterwards, the researchers asked them to record every night whether the worries they had written down actually happened over the course of a month. The results were astonishing:

1. 91.4% of worries did not actually occur.
2. Of the worries that did occur, 30.1% were less serious than expected.

Interestingly, among participants who verified their anxiety every night, students showed a tendency for reduced anxiety during exams taken in that period. Why did anxiety decrease? Because by confronting anxiety, they were able to focus on efforts to reduce it (studying for exams).

In 2008, Wendy Liu’s research team at the University of California published a very interesting study. They asked 193 participants to engage in charitable activities and donations. The team encouraged participation with two different approaches:

A: First talk about ‘spending time on charitable activities’ and then ask how interested they are in ‘donating money.’
B: First talk about ‘donating money’ and then ask how interested they are in ‘spending time on charitable activities.’

Group A, who were first asked about time, donated twice as much as Group B, who were first asked about money, and the actual participation rate in charitable activities was 4.3 times higher. In other words, thinking about time sets emotional happiness as the standard, while thinking about money sets value maximization as the standard.

The human body has about 11 million sensory receptors, of which about 10 million are used for ‘seeing.’ More than 90% of the judgments we make rely on visual information. In other words, if you consciously change what you see, you can naturally move in the direction you want. By applying this principle to change everyday choices, behavior naturally changes as well, which ultimately can change the direction of life and even fate.

Afterwards, participants were asked to solve as many as possible of 50 tedious calculation problems within 5 minutes. Group A, who imagined their best possible future, solved about 31% more problems on average than Group B, who recalled their best past memories. In other words, concretely imagining your future self positively influences motivation and behavioral change. Recalling past achievements also helps restore confidence, but past experiences may have relatively less sustained motivational effect.

In 2014, a research team at San Francisco State University presented a groundbreaking process to turn failure into success.

Step 1: Recall past actions that caused regret and conflict.
Step 2: Accept your past self by thinking, ‘Given my abilities and environment at the time, it was the best choice, and I had no other option.’
Step 3: Ask yourself, ‘With the wisdom I have now after growing a bit, what other options could I have taken?’
Step 4: Imagine going back to the past situation and using your current wisdom to do what you couldn’t do then. The key is to deeply immerse yourself in the image using all five senses.
Step 5: Rewrite the past and smile as you celebrate overcoming it.

The research team asked some of 70 students to try this process for several weeks. As a result, students who tried this process reported more than three times higher self-perceived productivity and energy, and procrastination tendencies were reduced by more than half compared to those who did not. Most participants testified that the more they turned failure into success, the more energized they felt and the stronger their motivation to ‘try again!’ became.

Jikan Chizu | Written by Mochizuki Toshitaka | Translated by Kim Seulgi | Yuno Books | 244 pages | 17,000 won