Group Rationality Diary, November 16-30

therufs

This is the public group rationality diary for November 16-30.

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: November 1-15

Next diary: December 1-15

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group rationality diary for November 16-30.

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: November 1-15

Next diary: December 1-15

Rationality diaries archive

What happened those times you ignored your schedule? There can be very different breakpoints in a system like this.

Do you break away to do other things that need to be done but didn't get to schedule properly?
Are you neglecting to check the schedule?
Is acknowledging the schedule turning into an ugh field?
Are finding the scheduled item is not something immediately actionable?
Are the scheduled items taking longer/shorter than expected?
Are you constantly finding excuses (even good ones) not to do the scheduled thing?

Some subset of the above? Without knowing specifics, I can tell you: Schedules tend towards sucking up will-power, as philh was getting at, like a badly designed phone application drains power. Scheduled items require over and over again that you do this at this time, whether you want to or not, whether it makes sense to do it then or not. You may find formulating itty bitty trigger-action habits more useful than a schedule: make them just big enough to put you in a perfect position to work on the task, and small enough that that you can do just that and stop if it's not a good time. (BJ Fogg's tiny habits)[http://tinyhabits.com/join/] is BRILLIANT at setting these up.