Group Rationality Diary, March 16-31

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for March 16-31.

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: March 1-15

Next diary: April 1-15

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for March 16-31.

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: March 1-15

Next diary: April 1-15

Rationality diaries archive

I've been trying to learn a difficult language for some time now. I've found the process to be pretty painful, and I'm prone to akrasia. I've been trying to come up with some way of effectively practicing that isn't horrible. This is the solution I've come up with:

First, I've found that reading and translating with other people is fun and engrossing, and I'm ashamed not to show up. So whenever I can, I find other people to read with.

When I have to do read alone, the best way seems to be to give myself a fixed amount of text to translate and a fixed amount of time, little enough that I'm rushing. I tell someone I'm committing to show them my translation afterwards (i.e. just that I've done it). This isn't pleasant, but the time pressure keeps me focused, and I'm proud of finishing when I do.

When I read a foreign language, I prefer to read aloud. This helps me to understand some phrases I don't get from reading alone. This may work better for languages closely related to the native one, but it also helps getting the pronunciation right. (For languages I'm more fluent in, I read in different accents. This keeps me from getting bored)

For languages I don't know well, reading comics helps me most, because I can pick up many words from context and I don't have to look up words. Switching to comic books was perhaps the best change of learning habits... (read more)

1Slackson12y

What could you do to make reading alone more pleasant, without a trade-off in productivity?

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Group Rationality Diary, March 16-31

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Group Rationality Diary, March 16-31

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