“Scarcity captures our attention, and this provides a narrow benefit: we do a better job of managing pressing needs. But more broadly, it costs us: we neglect other concerns, and we become less effective in the rest of life.”

Angry Birds, the game in which you lob birds at obstacles, has been phenomenally popular. Angry blueberries, a game created by the authors in which you lob blueberries at obstacles, has been somewhat less popular, but shows an interest result. Some players are given three blueberries per round, others six. People with more blueberries do better, of course, but they do a lot worse per blueberry!

Scarcity, the authors say, focuses the mind. We have finite mental capacity, and when we are forced to focus it, we do much better on that task, but much worse on every other task. They worry that the modern obsession with time management and efficiency makes time a scarce resource. That may help us schedule, but makes us sloppy in other areas, and vulnerable to any sort of unexpected demand on our time: something comes up, and it ripples through our entire week, making everything stressful. A little more slack in our schedule isn’t just wasted time a management consultant can help us fill: it’s a shock absorber, making our work schedule antifragile.

As with most good behavioural books, it does have a lot of fun studies though: pill bottles that beep and then send text messages when they haven’t been opened that day, gift cards for savings, and others. In the end, I’m not sure the book tells us anything any other behavioural economics book doesn’t. Introducing scarcity, though it makes for nice sound bites, doesn’t really add much to the analysis, despite their hard work attempting to use it to explain things.

If your bookshelf is looking scarce, however, you can get a copy here!