buybuydandavis comments on [Draft] Productive Use of Heuristics and Biases - Less Wrong

7 Post author: wattsd 26 August 2012 06:08PM

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Comment author: buybuydandavis 26 August 2012 08:03:31PM 0 points [-]

I'd focus more on getting effective more than reducing or managing biases. The latter often serves the former, but I think the answers come fairly directly if you start there.

I see most of the methods you list as general process improvement methods whether or not they actually improve intuition.

An alternative to improving your intuition and removing your biases would be to find other and better processes and tools to rely on. And then actually use them.

That last part is probably the main failing. We all have a boatload of good ideas that would make us a zillion times more effective if we actually used them.

How often do you plan? How often do you monitor your plans? Measure the results? Provide summary statistics? Do you avail yourself of any tools to do this?

For probably a couple of decades now, I've wanted some planning software where I input goals, utilities, activities, and results, and the software plans my day, makes suggestions, tracks progress on those goals, and charts overall utility.

I bet that pencil and paper process monitoring would be a huge advance. Yet I don't do it. I don't need a lot of fancy research about process monitoring to improve, I need to do it.

I would think this is true for most everyone here. We indulge our enjoyment of thinking, and fell justified in doing so, when it really isn't much different than watching porn. Mental masturbation. Wank wank wank, instead of getting things done. It's actually a bit worse than porn, because we feel justified when we mentally wank, we feel we're accomplishing something respectable, and for the most part, society agrees.

Comment author: buybuydandavis 26 August 2012 08:04:43PM 0 points [-]

For probably a couple of decades now, I've wanted some planning software where I input goals, utilities, activities, and results, and the software plans my day, makes suggestions, tracks progress on those goals, and charts overall utility.

What's out there like this?

Comment author: wedrifid 27 August 2012 02:59:24AM 3 points [-]

For probably a couple of decades now, I've wanted some planning software where I input goals, utilities, activities, and results, and the software plans my day, makes suggestions, tracks progress on those goals, and charts overall utility.

What's out there like this?

Personal Assistants.

Comment author: wattsd 26 August 2012 08:23:49PM 1 point [-]

tracks progress on those goals, and charts overall utility.

I don't think it works very well for what you are envisioning, but something like spaced repetition software might help.

With SRS, the idea is that the software tries to figure out when you are going to forget something and prompts you at that time, when the reminder will be most effective.