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rhollerith_dot_com comments on Anti-akrasia remote monitoring experiment - Less Wrong
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Comments (114)
Shame is not an essential ingredient in the method. To see this, suppose the monitor has a button which freezes all the applications on the remote machine except for the application for communication between the parties.
I do not know about Vladimir, but the only reason I have not been doing it that way is to avoid the cost (in buying or developing software) of implementation of the button.
Before the internet, the average office contained no distractions more potent than Minesweeper, Solitaire, annoying office mates and gossip with coworkers.
I think of the method as a way to create a place with internet access as free of distractions as a pre-internet office.
There are thousands of software developers, web designers, film directors and other very bright people around the world constantly dreaming up more potent ways of using the internet to grab and keep our attention. Probably nothing in human cultural or genetic evolution prepared us to resist that kind of temptation. Certainly, being able to override an instinctual or habitual response was important in human evolution, but the sort of constant temptation represented by on-demand video sites like Hulu is probably unprecedented.
Consequently, I am disinclined to believe pjeby or any other self-help or productivity expert if they claim that my procrastination stems from a pathology that can be (your word) "cured" and am inclined to believe that procrastination is what you get when you give a normal pathology-free person access to the modern internet.
I claim quite the opposite, actually.
Want me to delete my "pjeby or"?
s'ok; I did claim it at one point, even sold a product called The Procrastination Cure. (I do not sell it any more, though: despite being 6 CDs in length, it covered only a relatively narrow part of the procrastination spectrum that I've discovered since.)
To be clear, though, this is really a language problem. You cannot cure "procrastination", but you can cure an instance of procrastination, such as an ugh field, an unclear goal, etc.
The monitoring method in the article will work well for some sources/instances, and not for others. It appears to me to be a digitized version of the ADD "body double" tactic, where having another person in the same room (even if not in any way observing or interacting with you) can improve your focus. So, if you have that type of problem with maintaining focus, one would guess that this technique would work well for it.
Despite the increasing forms of addictive distraction on the internet, I have personally observed that when I have some goal that actually interests me, I can go for days without visiting my usual addictive haunts. So, I therefore choose to interpret my desire to visit, say, LW, as an indication that I need to step back and either notice what I'm avoiding, or find a more engaging goal.
Speaking of which... gotta go. ;-)
See any downsides to the ADD "body double" tactic besides the cost of keeping the body double cooperative?
If it doesn't work (because your procrastination has different or additional causes), shame could create an additional ugh field or magnify the one you already have.
(But that risk is common to most anti-akrasia tactics, and the antidote is the same: realize that until this procrastination instance is fixed, you don't (and can't) really know what's causing it.)