Group rationality diary, 1/9/13

cata

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of January 7th. 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 everyone who contributes! Happy New Year to folks; my resolution is to always post these on Monday evenings instead of letting them slip to Tuesday or Wednesday : >

Previous diary; archive of prior diaries.

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for the week of January 7th. 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

Thanks to everyone who contributes! Happy New Year to folks; my resolution is to always post these on Monday evenings instead of letting them slip to Tuesday or Wednesday : >

Previous diary; archive of prior diaries.

I've been looking into beeminder and procrastinating about using it. The irony of this has not escaped me.

There is a class of things I don't want to do so much as have done, such as exercise; this is the sort of thing I'd like to use beeminder for. The internal fear leading to the procrastination seems to be "oh, crap, if I take step X that is likely to override my defenses against doing Y, I might actually do Y."

My brain goes to remarkable lengths to undermine me.

I suggest picking exactly one thing you'd like to track, and put it into Beeminder just to track, without enforcing a goal on it. That is a good way to get started. (It will require you to set a goal, but you can set it to be something you can trivially meet. I.e. if you're tracking 'how many minutes I ran today', just make the goal zero minutes.)

4RichardHughes13y

Are you sure that you really want to have done Y? Maybe you just think you do.

9OrphanWilde13y

Attempts to exercise because I want to lose weight have failed me, every time. Attempts to exercise because I had already reached the point where I enjoyed the exercise, however, succeeded. When I worked a manual-labor job, I got in terrific shape, exercising outside the job itself on a regular basis; I'd go jogging with the flu, in the rain, whatever. I didn't even notice I was in great shape until a couple of months after I was. I've had trouble putting myself into the mindset that "If I keep this up, I'll eventually enjoy it," using the enjoyment of the exercise as a terminal goal. But I think that it might be more successful than using a goal which is distinct from the action that leads to the goal. Don't choose ends; choose means, as ends into themselves. The means are what you spend all your time doing, after all.