Group Rationality Diary, September 1-15

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for September 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!

Next diary: September 16-30

Immediate past diary: August 16-31

Rationality Diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for September 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!

Next diary: September 16-30

Immediate past diary: August 16-31

Rationality Diaries archive

A new semester has started up, and I'm signed up for three classes, as well as being a TA, as well as doing research. The original plan was to go to the first session of each class, decide which one I liked the least, and then drop that one, but turns out I really like all of them. So I think this is going to be a busy semester for me.

As a result I've been pulling out all the productivity techniques I've had in a back pocket for a while and applying them. I'm using pomodoros for all of my work it's appropriate for; I'm scheduling my next day on the previous day (and am trying to schedule as many things as I can routinely, so that I'll only have one or two decisions to make about the next day each day). We'll see how well I stay on top of things, and which of these techniques end up doing the most work (if it's possible to disambiguate their effects).