Group Rationality Diary, January 16-31

therufs

This is the public group rationality diary for January 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: January 1-15

Next diary: February 1-14

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group rationality diary for January 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: January 1-15

Next diary: February 1-14

Rationality diaries archive

Having resolved to not obtain any new books for the first half of 2015, I'm keeping a list of topics I'll want to read about. I can curate this list, removing topics I lose interest in, or which are satisfied elsewhere in the interim, and come July I should be left with a list comprising only of subjects I'm sufficiently motivated to study.

I'm not sure six months is the best level of granularity for this, but that could just be my impatience talking.

A related observation, now I'm not distracted by whichever new book tickles my fancy, is that many of the books I've been putting off reading are books I'm very keen to read, but was somehow intimidated by.