Cool, thanks for doing this (internet high five!).
Anyway...
I've bitten my nails and the skin around them compulsively since I was a child, and have previously used bad-tasting polish, tried CBT, and briefly seen a hypnotherapist to try to stop. I started paying attention to when I did it during the camp (I believe following Critch's first session on self-modification), and I eventually noticed that I do a little pre-bite running of my fingertips over my nails to identify candidate spots to munch on. I shifted to using this feeling as a trigger and immediately congratulating myself for noticing. This hasn't worked completely yet (I think there are a few more precursor states that I've yet to identify), but I'm encouraged.
I resolved a few long-standing issues at work today in a very pleasing manner, but it's hard to tell if this has anything to do with the camp or if they were just ready to pop. I'm in a very content and energized state (oddly, despite little sleep), which may have helped.
I also think I've successfully instituted a policy of flatly refusing all sugars (using Jolly's trick of mentally classifying them as Gross Non-Food Things), because I just flatly refused the offer of a piece of banana bread without even considering it.
I failed at my goal of getting some work done at the airport before my flight home - it was just too much fun hanging out!
Also, two "Use Fungibility" wins:
Saw a parking ticket in my wife's bag, and had the thought "Wait, she has a disproportionate hatred for paying these and she's extremely busy. Doing it for her is a cheap way to buy some husband points [we literally have these, although accounting is somewhat haphazard]." She was ecstatic!
In a teleconference, my boss muted the line and asked a simple but important question (about the financial relationship between two other groups that were on the call) that none of our team could answer. I realized
Background: I and many other attendees at the CFAR rationality minicamp last weekend learned a lot about applied rationality, and made big personal lists of things we wanted to try out in our everyday lives. I think that a regular (weekly or maybe semi-weekly) post where people mention any new interesting habits, decisions, and actions they have taken recently would be cool as a supplement to this; it ought to be rewarding for people to be able to write a list of the cool things they did, and I expect it'll also be interesting for other people to peek in and see the sorts of goals and self-modifications people are working on. Others at minicamp seemed enthusiastic about the idea, so I hope it takes off. Feel free to meta-discuss whether this is a good idea or if it can be done better.
Addendum 5/15: By the way, non-minicamp people should feel free to post too! I am highly certain that minicamp attendees are not the only ones working on interesting things in their lives.
This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of May 14th. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:
Or anything else interesting which you want to share, so that other people can think about it, and perhaps be inspired to take action themselves. Try to include enough details so that everyone can use each other's experiences to learn about what tends to work out, and what doesn't tend to work out.
Discussion's likely to continue gradually through the week, so try to remember to check back now and then!