Even the greatest writers had to sometimes trick themselves into writing. John Steinbeck, for one, couldn't put words to paper unless he had 12 perfectly sharpened pencils lined up on his desk. German philosopher Friedrich Schiller "could not live or work" without a drawer full of rotting apples nearby—a fact his poor friend Goethe discovered by following a strange, unpleasant smell to its source in Schiller's study. Even Virginia Woolf relied on a custom-made (定制的) standing desk—not for any health benefits, but because her sister, a painter, worked standing all day, and Virginia hated to appear any less hard-working.
The magic here is not in the pencils, or the standing, or even the rotting apples: It's in the ritual (仪式). Rituals are powerful drivers of behavior, and there's increasingly more research to back it up. Studies have shown that a ritual toast before a drink can make the drink taste better, ritual journaling can reduce stress while promoting a more positive view, and any ritual behavior that establishes the start of a process can help us push through delay and get rid of anxiety. Some rituals can even improve our performance in tasks tied to personal identity. In this case, it may be as simple as writing with a lucky pen.
Across several studies, researchers had students complete a variety of physical and mental challenges, sometimes with the help of "lucky" objects that reinforced a part of their identity; for example, a drinking coaster (杯垫) decorated with a picture of an athlete might be given to a student to use during a coaster-flipping game. The question was: Can custom-made equipment have an impact on success? The answer seems to be yes. According to Scientific American: Even though participants did not expect any benefit, they got higher scores using a customized pen, and they played a beer-coaster flipping game better with customized coasters.
It is worth noting that the effect worked best when those customized objects had a strong connection to some part of the student's purpose. One of the study authors, professor Martin Schreier explains, "If there is a connection between the goal and the identity, then you are more motivated to achieve this goal because you can be sure of this part of the identity."
