Viliam_Bur comments on Group Rationality Diary, December 1-15 - Less Wrong

2 Post author: therufs 02 December 2013 09:46PM

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Comment author: Emile 03 December 2013 10:32:16PM *  4 points [-]

A few different things:

I have had a fairly solid Anki habit for the past three months or so.

I have ankified a few self-improvement concepts (Lukeprog's posts on procrastination, some of Kaj Sotala's stuff on habits, random other tidbits), and I believe the constant exposure to those ideas has started having an effect, in that I seem to have started doing a lot of the advice in there (not all though). I may report on it later on.

But more dramatically effective, I recently started using HabitRPG, and have used it to get a few new daily habits:

  • Always get up before the alarm (previously I'd loaf around in bed for up to half an hour)
  • Always go to bed before midnight
  • Update my Gratitude Journal every day (I had been doing that semi-regularly for a few weeks before though)
  • Do some exercise every morning

It's also a good motivator for just getting things done in general. My choice of habits have been somewhat influenced by KajSotala's article on The Power of Habit, and by talking to some LWers who read that book and talked about Keystone Habits around exercise and sleeping. Also, I was influenced by Lukeprog's talking about success spirals to start by focusing on somewhat easier-to-achieve things (and also, Swimmer's discussion of goals versus systems.

Comment author: Viliam_Bur 04 December 2013 07:37:40AM 0 points [-]

Always go to bed before midnight

How exactly do you put this in HabitRPG? Do you use HabitRPG from your bed, or can you somehow enter your daily task the next day?

I imagine you could make a daily goal of "I went to bed before midnight yesterday", but that feels a bit inellegant.

Comment author: Emile 04 December 2013 01:28:59PM 1 point [-]

I have Habit RPG for Android, so yep I can use it from bed (it's also convenient for entering todos that I forgot without having to get up).

(I also set the "end of day" to 2 AM so that I can still enter dailies like that after midnight)

Comment author: philh 04 December 2013 09:07:45AM 0 points [-]

I imagine you could make a daily goal of "I went to bed before midnight yesterday", but that feels a bit inellegant.

This is what I do.

Comment author: therufs 05 December 2013 04:56:04PM -1 points [-]

Me also. It's gratifying to start the day by getting to remind myself that I was successful at stuff yesterday.

I also have an (admittedly ill-defined and therefore poorly adhered-to) goal of minimizing screen use after I get home for the night. But at least HRPG is one tab I don't feel compelled to open.