There have been more bike thefts in our neighborhood recently. People are telling me to be careful and more cautious.

No! Your math is wrong.

Say you spend an additional 30 seconds locking up your bike more securely. That’s 1 minute a day and totals 6 hours a year. And how much have you reduced the chances that your bike gets stolen? 1%, 5%, 20%? Say it’s 50% (which it is not). And say that the effort you spent is proportional to the reduction in robbery probability (which it is not). Are you going to tell me that spending 12 hours locking up your bike to completely prevent a low frequency event is worth it?

No! Your monkey brain is leading you astray.