Linking financial element to energy consumption I think has a huge role if you think about a display instrument that could teach us about what we are using, how much it costs us, how much it is saving, and therefore change our decisions.

In total, by giving people $30 bonus, Intel lost almost 5 percent of productivity. That's a lot. Now, think about it. You give money because you think this would increase motivation. It actually decreases motivation.

There's something about [cyclically] doing something over and over and over that seems to be particularly demotivating.

Thinking is difficult and sometimes unpleasant.

Money is a great way to get happiness. Right? Lots of wonderful things you can do with money. The question is, are we really optimizing on that? So, if you think about getting lattes and getting cable. Which one of those is actually giving you a greater happiness, and if you have to cut on one of those, which one would you cut? So, I think thinking in terms of concrete terms would help us a great deal.

We can think about how we reduce the pain in paying. So, for example, credit cards are wonderful mechanisms to reduce the pain of paying. If you go to a restaurant and you are paying cash, you would feel much worse than if you were paying with credit card. Why? You know the price, there's no surprise, but if you're paying cash, you feel a bit more guilt.

That’s a lesson we can all learn: the more we have, the more we want. And the only cure is to break the cycle of relativity.