# Tunneling Created: 2023_07_04 18:45 Tags: [[Model]] [[Psychology]] Researchers have found that when people experience scarcity—of money or time or mental bandwidth—little problems crowd out the big ones. When people are juggling a lot of problems, they give up trying to solve them all. They adopt tunnel vision. People who are tunneling can’t engage in systems thinking. They can’t prevent problems; they just react. It dooms you to stay in an endless cycle of reaction. To escape the tunnel you need slack. Reserve of time or resources that can be spent on problem-solving. This is where the minimizing cognitive load on teams is so important. Without the slack, the teams won't think systemically. You also need to create an urgent demand to fix a problem that may not happen for a while. Make the upstream feel downstream. ## References - [[zettels/Upstream - Dan Heath]] - https://www.tobysinclair.com/post/book-summary-upstream-by-dan-heath-how-to-solve-problems-with-systems-thinking