John_Maxwell_IV comments on Open Thread, April 1-15, 2012 - Less Wrong

3 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 01 April 2012 04:24AM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (150)
Tags: open thread open_thread

Comments (150)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Vladimir_Golovin 01 April 2012 11:36:29AM *  8 points [-]

I tried Autofocus as a replacement for my current system for getting stuff done, and so far it works a lot better than GTD (though I can't say that I was using GTD properly, for example, I couldn't bring myself to do regular reviews). The main benefit for me was its ability to handle long-term thinking / gestation tasks, mostly due to not treating them as enemies to be crossed off the list as soon as possible. And it requires very little willpower to run.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 02 April 2012 06:37:17AM 6 points [-]

I just had an extremely simple but promising theory of why work is aversive!

Work is the stuff you tell yourself to do. But sometimes you tell yourself to do it and you don't, because you're too tired, engaged with something else (like playing a computer game), etc. This creates cognitive dissonance, which associates unpleasantness with the thought of work. (In the same way cognitive dissonance causes you to avoid your belief's real weak points, it causes you to avoid work.) Ugh fields accumulate.

The solution? Only tell yourself to work when you're actually going to work, with minimal cognitive dissonance.

Autofocus helps accomplish this by helping you avoid telling yourself to work when you're not actually going to work, which means cognitive dissonance doesn't accumulate.

Designated work times, etc. might also help solve this problem.

Comment author: Multiheaded 07 April 2012 12:28:44AM 0 points [-]

Holy crap, it might be true! Will definitely try that.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 07 April 2012 03:55:08AM 1 point [-]

Well it's only a descriptive theory; it doesn't actually tell you what to do about the fact that accumulated cognitive dissonance is making you procrastinate. Still, I think there are some practical applications:

  • Consciously try to minimize cognitive dissonance when you tell yourself to work and don't.
  • Develop some sort of unambiguous decision rule for deciding when to work and when not to.
  • If you set out to do something, try to actually do it without getting distracted, even if you get distracted by something that's actually more important. (Or if you get distracted by something that's actually more important, make a note of the fact that you are rationally changing what you're working on.) (Now that I think of it, this rule actually has more to do with avoiding learned helplessness due to setting out to do something and failing.)
Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit