This afternoon I identified a way in that I strongly need to be more rational, and I wondered if there has been anything written about it on Less Wrong.

A few hours ago, I was picking up my two children from their school. They're at a very young age so my heuristic is: near a parking lot, hang on to them.

While we were exiting the school building, another small child ran from his mother and slipped through the door between me and my youngest child. I feebly tried to grab the boy's shirt but he tugged away and then I just watched as he ran into the parking lot. I was in the middle of a decision algorithm to chase after him when he finally settled in a safe spot beside his family's car.

After about a full minute of playing the moment over and over in my head, I felt deeply disturbed by the fact that I hadn't instinctively grabbed the boy to effectively catch him and then hadn't run after him in time to save him if there had been a car. I was fully culpable: the only reason the door was open was because I was holding the door open for my kids, I knew he was running into a parking lot, and I was standing between him and his mother. But I just didn't think fast enough. My heuristic was 'hang on to my kids', which I did.

This seems to have been a matter of not computing fast enough. How could I have thought faster, in a way that would have resulted in a useful action? There have been several times in the past year where I just want to kick myself for not doing the right thing at the right time. Is this a form of akrasia?