Liron comments on Share Your Anti-Akrasia Tricks - Less Wrong

20 Post author: Vladimir_Golovin 15 May 2009 07:06PM

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Comment author: Liron 16 May 2009 05:10:06AM *  8 points [-]

The best motivator for me is meeting other people's expectations, or trying to impress them.

Anecdote 1: A few summers ago, my friend paid me $100 to make a website for his babysitting business. I started working on it at his house and he saw me and realized it was going to take significantly more than the 8 hours I predicted. So every day he would come over to my house to watch me work on the site. It went at a steady pace and I finished after 25 hours of work. Meanwhile I had another, more important programming project that I was being unproductive at.

Anecdote 2: At work, when I'm feeling unmotivated, I think "What's the quickest way I can show my boss a demo of something to prove I've been working?"

Anecdote 3: If I work out at the gym by myself, I never do the exercises that feel awkward unless someone is watching, and I don't make quite the impossible effort to strain my muscle more after it already feels dead.

Side note: When I'm at work, I always think "This is so tedious. I'm looking forward to getting on with my workout later." Then when I'm working out, I think "This is so damn painful. I'm looking forward to just sitting at work and writing code."