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John_Maxwell_IV comments on Open Thread, April 1-15, 2012 - Less Wrong Discussion

3 Post author: OpenThreadGuy 01 April 2012 04:24AM

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Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 02 April 2012 06:37:17AM 6 points [-]

I just had an extremely simple but promising theory of why work is aversive!

Work is the stuff you tell yourself to do. But sometimes you tell yourself to do it and you don't, because you're too tired, engaged with something else (like playing a computer game), etc. This creates cognitive dissonance, which associates unpleasantness with the thought of work. (In the same way cognitive dissonance causes you to avoid your belief's real weak points, it causes you to avoid work.) Ugh fields accumulate.

The solution? Only tell yourself to work when you're actually going to work, with minimal cognitive dissonance.

Autofocus helps accomplish this by helping you avoid telling yourself to work when you're not actually going to work, which means cognitive dissonance doesn't accumulate.

Designated work times, etc. might also help solve this problem.

Comment author: Multiheaded 07 April 2012 12:28:44AM 0 points [-]

Holy crap, it might be true! Will definitely try that.

Comment author: John_Maxwell_IV 07 April 2012 03:55:08AM 1 point [-]

Well it's only a descriptive theory; it doesn't actually tell you what to do about the fact that accumulated cognitive dissonance is making you procrastinate. Still, I think there are some practical applications:

  • Consciously try to minimize cognitive dissonance when you tell yourself to work and don't.
  • Develop some sort of unambiguous decision rule for deciding when to work and when not to.
  • If you set out to do something, try to actually do it without getting distracted, even if you get distracted by something that's actually more important. (Or if you get distracted by something that's actually more important, make a note of the fact that you are rationally changing what you're working on.) (Now that I think of it, this rule actually has more to do with avoiding learned helplessness due to setting out to do something and failing.)
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