= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
wedrifid comments on Akrasia Tactics Review - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (144)
My most extreme Anti-Akrasia tactic. Somewhat on the crude but extremely effective the couple of times I have used it:
timecave.com is a service that sends emails with time delay, scheduling them at some time in the future. My use for it is to generate a random password for a forum that is a time sink and have it emailed to me at a specified time in the future. In this case lesswrong.com until 1 Jan. I've duplicated the email in emailalibi.com in case timecave goes down.
I have real learning to do and have more or less mastered 'one boxing' in counterfactuals (although come to think of it even decision theory hasn't been cropping up much of late). I'll take the chance to remove a procrastination temptation. This way I can save my limited reserves of willpower for areas that don't have such a neat technical solution.
I'm giving this one a rating of 8. Effective, but not quite bullet proof. At least it provides a significant roadblock before one form of procrastination.
Actually, make that 5.
You'd think I would know never to try to lock me out of something with technical limitations. That almost never works. In fact, it probably just tempts me with a challenge.
I am different that way.
When I am in the mental state necessary for solving a technical challenge, I am probably able resist a temptation. When I can start the tempting activity out of habit, without thinking, is when the vast majority of my procrastination happens. (And of course, the pleasurable tempting activity conditions me to start the tempting activity. Ever notice how effortlessly you walk to the fridge and open the fridge door? If you're like me, and you probably are, that's the effect of conditioning.)
Of course, my ability to get into the the mental state in which I can solve technical challenges or resist a temptation is very much a depletable resource, like you describe in great grandparent.
It sounds like you are somewhat different there. For me the mental state where I am most adept at solving technical challenges (hypomania) is more or less self reinforcing. In that state I get a lot of everything done. Both work and procrastination. The resisting of temptation relies on an entirely different mechanism.
If you're thinking about what I'm thinking about, I just change the e-mail in my profile to a fake one before doing that, so that I can't even reset the password by e-mail.