Why patience pays off

What does baseball, art history and investing have in common? Only the patient win. Art history students at Harvard University almost always have a boring first day. Their task, says Prof Jennifer Roberts, is to go to the local museum, choose a favourite piece of art, then sit down and look at it – for three full hours. If the thought of that doesn’t scare you just a little, count yourself lucky. We’ve become so used to getting our whims fulfilled immediately by the internet that attention spans have fallen by a third since 2000. Prof Roberts knows the task is boring and that three hours is a 'painfully long time’. But her purpose isn’t to encourage concentration. Instead, she wants her students to feel the restlessness build, accept it, and push onwards – whereupon they see things in the art that their passing glances missed. Her point is that in the art world, as in investing, patience is rewarded. Read full article here: (VIEW LINK)