Group Rationality Diary, August 1-15

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for August 1-15.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

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.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating!

Immediate past diary: July 16-31

Next diary: August 16-31

Rationality Diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for August 1-15.

It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:

Established a useful new habit

Obtained new evidence that made you change your mind about some belief

Decided to behave in a different way in some set of situations

Optimized some part of a common routine or cached behavior

Consciously changed your emotions or affect with respect to something

Consciously pursued new valuable information about something that could make a big difference in your life

Learned something new about your beliefs, behavior, or life that surprised you

Tried doing any of the above and failed

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.

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating!

Immediate past diary: July 16-31

Next diary: August 16-31

Rationality Diaries archive

I realized that I have a myriad of interests, and that I put a lot of effort into pursuing and studying them, but ostensibly make very little progress in any of them.

I realized this is mostly due to how I will try to do too much at once, and learn too many things at once, changing which interest I want to pursue daily or hourly etc.

To combat this two months ago I began forcing myself to choose one interest or goal at a time, and only allow myself to use my free time on that particular goal or interest for a minimum of two weeks. So far the results have been excellent, I've made actual significant progress on the goals and interests I've chosen so far. Not only has this been objectively beneficial in the sense that I'm making more progress than I normally do at something, but I find it to be much more satisfying as well, since I can really dig into something for a while before moving on.