If you do an experiment, please do report back. I'm interested in the results, though not enough to do it myself.
Mostly I regard very high-pressure pledges as a kind of personal "nuclear option". I occasionally will do this for a short period - like last semester, when I had to catch up on schoolwork after a very long illness, and needed very strict rules to keep myself on track - but it seems like a bad idea to do if you think the probability of breaking it is at all high. If you do break it, you lose a big part of your ability to trust important precommitments; I don't use such promises all the time because I want to be able to use them if I have to.
Also, I don't really want to lose that much money.
I've found it helpful to have a plan for what to do when I get off track, and a small allowance for random interference in my tracking.. Perfection is an unreasonable standard for the majority of my activities.
Learning how to start again is more valuable than keeping to perfection. And, it's a skill I use more often.
This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of December 10th. It's a place to record and chat about it if you have done, or are actively doing, things like:
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 everyone who contributes!
Previous diary; archive of prior diaries.