APPARENT SOLUTION: Willpower weightlifting

I'll explain my thinking, but with the understanding that the thinking generated a solution for reasons that might have nothing to do with the thinking that went into the solution-generation.

It occurred to me that since I am godshatter, I should expect that I have many, many different utility functions. I'm also aware of the apparent fact from embodied cognition that physical enactment is a kind of reinforcement. Since I think it makes sense to think of akrasia as what happens when one utility function generates a behavior that another utility function judges as undesirable, it should be possible to eliminate akrasia by maximizing actions that support specific utility functions while minimizing actions reinforcing opposing utility functions.

The main mechanism for being able to do this, as I understand it, is the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. In short, it's responsible for impulse control. There are three ways to train it that we currently know of, namely (1) mindfulness training, (2) doing novel and challenging things, and (3) encountering and resisting temptation. It occurred to me that I could use #3 in order to apply hormetism to honing willpower.

So here's what I've been doing since November 21st:

• I started by listing all things that draw me in that I could think of. That includes my checking-a-thousand-things, but also things like wanting to work on my dissertation to get it finished, writing up solutions for my students, writing entries on Less Wrong, and poking at my skin in the mirror when I'm tired. Any regular activity I tend toward pre-reflection went on this list. (These probably weren't all in the same category, but that's okay. I still ended up with all of about 20 things on the list, including some things I'd want to reinforce and some I'd rather do without.)
• Along with these, I made note of the "triggers." For instance, the "check my stuff" impulse would appear anytime I had access to the internet and had an idle moment.
• I picked out a few I'd like to decrease and chose one (namely the "check my stuff" impulse) to use for training.
• Every day I would pay attention specifically to the arising of that specific impulse. Whenever it would arise, I viewed it as an opportunity to train my willpower. I let my mind dwell on the possibility of following through, but I was very careful not to physically start following through at all. (The impulse control mechanism works on motor neurons. Starting something and aborting it turns out to be significantly easier and less intense as a "workout" than catching the impulse when it first appears and preventing it from moving your body is.)
• In particular, I specifically sought out ways to trigger the "check my stuff" impulse in order to make it arise and then not follow through. Yes, I knew this would have the effect of shaping my impulse away, but that wasn't my main purpose. My main purpose was to strengthen my willpower. I was using the impulse as a "weight" upon which to develop my inner strength in general. The diminishing of the "check my stuff" impulse would be a pleasant side-effect. (This reframing turned out to be immensely useful to me.)
• Finally, I would let myself do this to mental exhaustion in training sessions, avoid the trigger thereafter, and then give myself permission to check my stuff at predesignated times. For instance, I can check my email at the end of the day. It seems to be important to offer myself some time to recover, much like constantly weightlifting doesn't actually help your muscles nearly as much as having hard training sessions and then resting does.

This has had the effect of decreasing impulsiveness in general for me. While training, though, I find that I have to watch for rationalization rather than for getting overwhelmed by the impulse. Rationalization seems to be what "getting overwhelmed by the impulse" feels like, at least for me.

I should mention, by the way, that I haven't worked out a good way to avoid training the mind to be really good at sending the "I'm overwhelmed with exhaustion and have had enough training" signal prematurely. I haven't noticed this as a big problem, but of course I wouldn't if it were a problem, would I?

The measurable effect is that I now tend to check email twice a day and the rest of my stuff just once a day. I've also started to use rationalization as a signal of a wonderful opportunity for training rather than as something to which I'm overly inclined to trust. My brain keeps getting better at offering more impressive-sounding rationalizations, which is actually pretty useful; it keeps the intensity of training up.

If nothing else, I seem to be able to notice when I'm erring in this particular respect based on a gut-feeling that I guess I would call "guilt" if I had to tag it with something. It's very subtle, but I've learned to notice it because it appears along with a sort of inner "sigh" of relief when I find myself following through on an impulse I decided earlier I wouldn't follow through on. (It's sometimes surprising what my subconscious mind considers to be "starting to follow the impulse." I thought that opening a new tab, putting in the email address for one of my "things to check," and then putting my finger on the "Enter" key but choosing not to follow through would make the training more intense, but it actually feels like following through on the impulse even if I stop there.)