Thinking Traps: How Life Hacker's New Book about the Deceiving Brain Was Created

What is this book about

Every day we share with you tips on how to "hack" life: to do something better and easier, to find answers to a variety of questions. And one day we thought: why do situations arise when life hacks are indispensable?

It turned out that our own brain is to blame for many problems. Believe me, it is not as simple as it seems. While we are pumping it, trying to absorb more new and useful, it substitutes us. For example, did you know that dark objects seem heavier to us than light ones? We thought, why are we trying to avoid crowded places after high-profile terrorist attacks, but continue to cross the road at a red light, although the danger of dying in this case is much higher?

We figured out what mistakes we make because of stereotypes, myths and even our own senses, and we realized that there is enough material for a whole book. It turned out to be a real guide to the most common human delusions and ways to overcome them, which we decided to share with our readers. Now we know exactly how illusions affect our lives and make us once again fall for the tricks of scammers, spend more than necessary or choose the wrong people for living together, and then suffer.

Our head contains the fears of a caveman, numerous delusions and stereotypes imposed by society. And often we make decisions, unconsciously relying on them, and not on common sense.

The purpose of this book is to shatter illusions. This does not mean that after reading everything will immediately change for the better, but you will learn to recognize the pitfalls of thinking in real life and decide for yourself what to do with them - to cling to the hook or choose a different path.

My favorite chapter is the final one. It is dedicated to gender issues and destroys the myths that have enveloped men and women for years, ideas about how to live right and wrong. If you still think that some of us are from Mars, and some are from Venus, read urgently: there are many discoveries awaiting you.

How we worked on the book

We studied 300 sources and collected the most useful

It took us almost a year to write the book. We carefully selected the most common traps of thinking, studied over 300 studies, created beautiful illustrations and tried to tell about everything that we found out in the most accessible way.

The Lifehacker team that created the book "The Pitfalls of Thinking"

A cool team of Lifehacker employees worked on the text. Editor-in-chief Polina Nakrainikova, authors Iya Zorina, Asya Ploshkina, Elena Evstafieva, Anastasia Tulasova, Natalia Kopylova and editor Natalia Murakhtanova made sure that the materials were literate, logical and understandable.

Iya Zorina Author of Lifehacker.

I made a list of the traps of thinking and categorized them, and then the authors and I started working on the materials. Research on the topic was searched in trusted sources: PubMed, PsycNET, ResearchGate and other scientific journals. As often happens with science, there were controversial points. For example, there is an ancient study that concluded that there was some kind of cognitive bias, but there is also new material that refutes this. Anyway, we tried to get to the bottom of the truth.

One of the most difficult and at the same time interesting for me was the text about faith in horoscopes. My mother was very passionate about them, and I myself grew up on horoscopes. I know my zodiac sign better than a name and always check it with new acquaintances. I had to prove to myself that this was nonsense. It turned out to be difficult, I felt a huge dissonance.

It is worth reading this book to doubt everything: your iron principles, sources of information, beliefs and hopes. And also to understand and forgive yourself and other people and to learn that nothing can be known for sure.

Hand drawn illustrations

Drawings give the book a special mood, each of which was made by hand. Illustrator Olga Lisovskaya and art director of Lifehacker Alexander Somov worked on them. The guys tried not only to support the theme of each chapter with images, but also to amuse you a little. We hope they succeeded!

Olga Lisovskaya Illustrator of Lifehacker.

In total, I worked on the illustrations for about a month. First, we discussed with the art director the style of the pictures and the plot, and then we prepared the rough sketches, line drawings and the final version. The illustrations were done in pencil, then I finalized the textures by hand printing. Then I scanned the images and made the final touches in a graphics editor.

Illustration from the book “Traps of Thinking. Why our brain plays with us and how to beat it "

Probably the funniest drawing is the depraved pigeons in the picture with the grannies. Another funny moment happened with the interpretation of the illustration for the section "What is the difference between thinking and perception of men and women." My idea was that the man and the woman in the picture are spitting different seeds: he is a sunflower, and she is a watermelon. All these are one and the same product - seeds, but still they are different.

Art director Sasha looked and said: "Oh, cool, the point is that he is on the ceiling and she is on the floor?" I didn't even take this moment as significant: it seemed to me that in this case, the most important thing is the seeds! In general, the result is a living illustration of a section from the book.

We worked together with the publishing house

We made the book with the publishing house "Bombora" (formerly "Exmo non-fiction"). This is not our first experience of working together: in 2018 we released “55 bright ideas for improving ourselves and our lives” (she is also great, look through!), And now we are talking about the traps in which your own brain is trying to catch you.

Evgeniya Lantsova Editor of the group of literature on self-development of the publishing house "Bombora".

Life hacker is a super popular media that writes about benefits, and Eksmo publishes books on self-development, so we immediately understood that we were on our way. The guys provided the content, and we combed it a little with the help of proofreaders and literary editors and packed it into a beautiful cover. When a book is ready, the publishing house promotes it: it gets into all bookstores in Russia, including online stores.

Lifehacker's illustrators helped us a lot with the cover. The beautiful Olya Lisovskaya, together with art director Sasha Somov, drew a wonderful illustration. We just have to retouch it and blow off the dust particles. Olya, in my opinion, just made this book. It turned out to be so unique, among other things, thanks to the drawings that accompany each chapter.

In general, respect to all the guys who had a hand in the new book. The authors shoveled a huge amount of information to collect the traps of thinking that prevent us from being happy, communicating with other people, understanding ourselves and the processes taking place around. The book is definitely worth reading in order to be useful and, of course, laugh at the illustrations. We tried our best!

Where can I buy

The book “Traps of thinking. Why our brain plays with us and how to beat it”can be purchased on the websites book24, OZON,“Labyrinth”and“Liters”, and in early March the book will appear in offline stores in your city. Price - from 598 rubles for the printed version and from 249 rubles for the digital.