Group Rationality Diary, September 16-30

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for September 16-30.

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!

Immediate past diary: September 1-15

Rationality Diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for September 16-30.

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!

Immediate past diary: September 1-15

Rationality Diaries archive

Notwithstanding having made a very specific list of things to do today, I almost immediately digressed into related tasks that were not on the list.

This failure mode requires further attention, as does (possibly) what is a suitable to-do list entry.

Further breakdown: The task turned out to have hidden problems, and so I started solving the problems in order to complete the task, which is fine, but not what i intended. I also didn't think before writing down the task 'might this task involve problems?'

Related failure: I do not feel productive, because the work I ended up doing was not the work I planned to do*. So I need to either get better at sticking to my list, or update on what merits feeling productive.

I wonder if I'd feel productive if I hadn't had a list at all?

* Edited to add: Maybe the reason I don't feel productive is because I have done a bunch of work but not reduced the observable pile of work that needs done.