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 started using intermittent positive reinforcement to increase my motivation. In the morning I do my Anki reviews in chunks of 100. After 100 reviews, the program will stop me and display a screen. I flip a coin. If it is heads, I get a reward, if it is tails, I get nothing. My current rewards are a cup of coffee or a piece of dark chocolate (I get to choose). Do another 100 reviews, get another flip. It seems to be helping me to study more, particularly Mandarin, which I fell off of.