Huh, I wonder why this post currently has negative karma. I've been conditioned as much as anyone to be critical of anything diegocaleiro writes, because it tends to be long-winded, unclear and poorly formatted, but this post is a welcome departure from this pattern, being clear, concise and to the point:
it starts with a short exercise,
uses it to identify a cognitive bias (seems like a new one to me, something along the lines of "missing the hump"),
suggests a course of action to mitigate it,
gives an example of applying the action,
analyzes other relevant examples,
has an inspirational conclusion.
That's the type of articles I would like to see in Main.
I do, however, know what to make of this shminux comment (as opposed to my other response to it). When optimizing for upvotes, follow the six suggestions above.
Maybe test a fake profile every now and then.
Try and remember 3 or 4 things that you think would be effective hacks for your life but you have not so far implemented. Really, find three.
Probably that was not so hard.
Now think of at which moment in time did you have a maximal probability of having implemented such hacks. Sometimes you had no idea that was the moment. But sometimes you did, like when a friend tells you "I just read this great paper on how people report cartoons being funnier when their face is shaped in a more smiling fashion." and you thought "Great! I may one day implement the algorithm: if studying, force a smile".
You knew you didn't plan to read the article, you knew you trust that friend, and you knew you'd either forget it later, or in any case that from that moment on, the likelihood of you implementing the algorithm would lower.
So my hack of the day is: If you feel you are likely at the maximal probability moment to start a new policy, start immediately.
My friend was telling me about how he went abroad to research: "...so at this place and people there used very strong lights as cognitive enhancement and yadda yadda yadda... (stopped listening for 40s) yadda yadda yadda.... and I wrote a paper on ..." By that time my room had an extra 110W light working.
Just now0 I thought: It was good I installed that light. Why didn't I do the same when I felt like finding a personalized shirt website where the front would be "I Don't want to talk about: [list]" and the back "Pick your topic: [list]" to once and for all stop the gossip and sports ice-breakers?
I didn't seize the maximal probability moment. That's what happened.
Then I noticed that that1 was the maximal probability moment to install in my mind the maximal probability moment algorithm, I did, and that2 was the maximal probability moment of writing this post.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have3 a shirt to buy.