This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for July 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.
Previous diary: July 1-15
Next diary: August 1-15
I've been using something very similar to this "autofocus" system as a to-do list / productivity tool for 6 months now - probably the longest I've ever managed to stick with a specific system and really feel like it's working. For the last month or so, one of the main motivating factors was that I was well on my way to completing a full notebook of list pages! I have now done so and started a new notebook on 30th June. Hopefully this one continues to work well too!
I would definitely recommend the system. One thing that I've always found I really need from a to-do list system is for it to give that feeling of every nagging thing-to-do being recorded somewhere outside my brain, so that my brain can chill out and get on with doing the things that are priorities. With this system, I have a reasonable level of confidence that nothing is slipping through the net and that, at any given moment, I'm probably working on something that is reasonably high on the priority list.
My main tweak to the described system is that I have two lists running simultaneously, one from the front of the notebook and one from the back. The front is for "work stuff" (fairly loosely defined; it can include things like topping up the snacks in my desk drawer, for instance) and the back for other stuff like personal finance things, housework chores, correspondence with friends, etc. I'm strict about working the front list according to the system when I'm in a work context, but way more relaxed about working the back list - I'll pick off random things from any current page that are appropriate to do right now, and don't mind going past a page without doing anything or rejecting all of the items. I think this works well because keeping the two lists separate enables me to have this sharp differentiation as to whether I have to be strict about the system or not.