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aaronsw comments on What are the optimal biases to overcome? - Less Wrong
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Use direct replies to this comment for suggesting things about tackling practical biases.
Carol Dweck's Mindset. While unfortunately it has the cover of a self-help book, it's actually a summary of some fascinating psychology research which shows that a certain way of conceptualizing self-improvement tends to be unusually effective at it.
Free pdf of Mindset.
Reviews seem to indicate that the book can and should be condensed into a couple quality insights. Is there any reason to buy the actual book?
The main insight of the book is very simple to state. However, the insight was so fundamental that it required me to update a great number of other beliefs I had, so I found being able to read a book's worth of examples of it being applied over and over again was helpful and enjoyable. YMMV.
I took a look at Mindset. The book seemed to me extremely repetitive and rambling. Its teachings could be condensed in an article ten or fifteen times shorter. Fortunately, this Stanford Magazine piece seems to accomplish something close to that. So, read the piece, and forget the book.
Set a ten-minute timer and make a list of all the things you could do that would make you regret not doing them sooner. And then do those things.
I have a pretty long list like this that I try to look at every day, but I can't post it for the next two weeks for a complicated, boring reason.
It's been two weeks. Can you post it now?
Indeed I can, and thank you for reminding me: D_Malik d_livers.
I didn't see your comment earlier because I switched accounts to stop using a pseudonym (as you can see), and I haven't been browsing the internet much lately because I'm doing my anki backlog, which I have because I was away from home for three weeks doing SPARC and other things, which, together with the fact that my anki "ideas" deck was corrupt (because I copied it over to my ipad before first closing anki) and the fact that I couldn't de-corrupt it on my ipad and didn't have my laptop with me, made me unable to post it at the time of the grandparent comment.
lukeprog's writings, especially Build Small Skills in the Right Order.
Ray Dalio's "Principles". There's a bunch of stuff in there that I disagree with, but overall he seems pretty serious about tackling these issues -- and apparently has been very successful.
Buy some nicotine gum and chew that while doing useful stuff, like working out, doing SRS reviews, thinking really hard about important things, etc..
Of course you should read up on nicotine gum before you do this. Start here.
I am curious about using nicotine as a low cost way to improve performance, and build positive habits for exercise. However as an ex-tobacco smoker (4 years). I am very wary of my interest in nicotine because I suspect that my interest is based on latent cravings. After reading about the positive effects of nicotine, all I could think about was taking a pull of an e-cig, I didn't give any thoughts at all to gums or patches, which should be a warning sign.
I am quite conflicted about this — I am very certain I would not go back to smoking tobacco, but I see my self using e-cigs as a daily habit rather than to promote habit learning on skills and activities that I want.
I think you should be careful and stick to gum or lozenges (or maybe patches) if you do nicotine at all.
Chewing a 4mg nicorette (gradually, as per the instructions) produces blood concentrations of nicotine about 2/3 that of a cigarette. If you cut a 4mg nicorette into 4 pieces like I do, and only take 1 piece per 30 minutes, that's even less. It's not enough to produce any sense of visceral pleasure for me (in a study on gwern's page, people couldn't distinguish between 1mg nicotine and placebo), but I think it's still enough to form habits. I don't think you should use nicotine as a way of "rewarding" things (by producing noticeable pleasure).
Maybe you could get someone else to dish out nicotine only when you're doing things you want to reinforce? That way it'll be harder for you to relapse.
(I'm D_Malik; I didn't see your post earlier because I changed usernames.)
Update
I eventually purchased Walgreen branded 21mg 24 hour release patches, which I cut into 4 equal doses. I use them for days when I go weight lifting or bouldering. I feel a noticeable alertness when I use the patches. I did not notice any increase desire to smoke and have no noticeable cravings on days when I am off the patch. I decided to stay away from any instant forms of nicotine such as e-cigs or gum.