Group Rationality Diary, October 1-15, plus frequency poll

therufs

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for October 1-15.

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.

New this month: If you have preferences about the future frequency of rationality diary posts, please express them in the poll below!

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Immediate past diary: September 16-30

Rationality diaries archive

This is the public group instrumental rationality diary for October 1-15.

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.

New this month: If you have preferences about the future frequency of rationality diary posts, please express them in the poll below!

Thanks to cata for starting the Group Rationality Diary posts, and to commenters for participating.

Immediate past diary: September 16-30

Rationality diaries archive

So my plan yesterday was to take a day with no computer, tablet, Kindle, or physical books in order to get some metacognition done about why I was having trouble getting started on my MIT talk.

Result: Spent almost the entire day lying in bed in a pseudo-REM state, then fell asleep a couple of hours early.

Next day, lo and behold, writing the talk doesn't seem so daunting. I think I was just exhausted, and having access to a computer, maybe even a Kindle or book, was sufficient to prevent previous rest days from being restful.

Yep, this happens to me too when I forget the other half of the secret: close the computer and go outside.

6TheOtherDave13y

Is there a way for this to inform your sleep/rest schedule moving forward?